Managing an email box in an orderly way means two basic things: clearing and always keeping the section of unread messages empty and organizing your inbox through filters and labels. While to organize the mail we have already seen several guides, including the one to order the inbox with filters and aliases in Gmail, we see here the best way to reset the inbox quickly, without having to necessarily read every message received in Gmail and without deleting anything.
The trick to always keep incoming mail with Gmail to zero (but also applies to other mailboxes) is to use the mysterious and little used function that "Archives" the mail, that is to keep it hidden, without however deleting it and keeping unread messages highlighted.
When you use the Archive button on the selected email messages, they are removed from the inbox .
Archived messages, however, are not deleted from Gmail, but only from the folder of received messages.
The notification of a message disappears even if that email has not been read.
In any email management program or application, such as Gmail, emails are mainly divided into 5 sections:
- Inbox must include all emails received which are significant and interesting.
- Mail sent, with emails sent to others.
- Spam, with emails considered automatically unwanted.
- Trash, deleted emails
- Archived, all messages removed from the Inbox, but not deleted.
The e -mail messages that need not be read or opened immediately, but which are better still kept and not deleted, should therefore be moved to the Archive .
The differences between archived and trashed emails are very important:
Archived emails are not automatically deleted after a certain period of time, as happens with those moved to the trash, but will remain in Gmail until they are manually deleted.
Archived messages are also included in generic searches made through the Gmail search engine, which is not the case for spam or deleted emails.
Archived emails count within the limit of Gmail's storage space, while, on the contrary, deleted emails do not count.
Archived emails, as mentioned above, are not automatically marked as read and in fact, if you archive an email without opening or reading it, it remains highlighted as unread even if it will not be included in the count of the Mail to be read.
Where do the messages archived in Gmail "> all messages " end up, to display all the emails inbox and those in the Archive all together.
If you are using Microsoft Outlook, there is instead an Archive tab to browse only those.
Emails stored with a label will then be visible in the various folders with a label, both those that Gmail automatically creates and personalized ones.
Now that we know how to use the function to archive messages, let's see how to use it to reset the number of unread messages in the inbox .
First of all, to archive all unread messages, including old ones, in one go, without deleting them, you can create a filter.
Then press the down arrow located on the Gmail search box, press the button next to Search and put "unread messages".
At the bottom, press the create filter link with this search, confirm the action, then, in the filter window, select only the "Ignore Inbox (Archive)" box.
Before clicking on Create Filter, select the option " Apply filter also to previous conversations ".
All unread messages to date will therefore be archived and the number showing the emails to be read is reset.
Finally, open the Gmail Settings by pressing the gear button at the top right, go to the Filters section and delete the newly created filter (to prevent the next incoming messages from being archived automatically).
By creating email message filters it is possible to ensure that emails from well-defined addresses are automatically archived, leaving them as unread.
You can also archive all messages, both read and unread, received before a certain date .
To do this, search in: inbox before: 2016/12/31 (in this example I want to archive all messages received before December 31, 2016), then press on Create filter for this search and select the action Ignore Inbox (Archive ), with the option to apply the filter to all conversations.
In the future, whenever you receive a message that you don't need to read (such as a notification from Facebook, Amazon or other apps), without deleting it, you can file it directly.
To archive an email in Gmail, just select it from the list and then press the Archive button at the top to make it disappear from the inbox.
The action for archiving messages can be accelerated on a PC by selecting Email and pressing the E key on the keyboard.
In Gmail for Android you can go to Menu> Settings> General Settings> Gmail default action and choose File (instead of Delete.
In this way, just swipe a message left or right to archive it without deleting it.
Also on Gmail for iPhone and iPad you can use the Archive button after selecting the inbox messages.
If you accidentally archive a message, you can easily return it to your Inbox, by looking for it from the All messages list, selecting it and then using the key to move it to the Inbox .
