Too Many E-mails? Try Priority Inbox for Gmail

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Jennifer Latkiewicz

Between e-mails from friends, colleagues, publicists and automated mailing lists, my Gmail inbox is never empty. Sifting through the hundreds of product pitches, updates from friends and sale reminders that flood my inbox on a daily basis can be overwhelming. But managing the e-mail overload is a bit easier now, thanks to Google’s Priority Inbox, a new beta feature for Gmail.


Priority Inbox splits your inbox into three sections: “Important and unread,” “Starred” and “Everything else.”

Using information such as keywords and the people you e-mail most frequently, Google’s new feature prioritizes e-mails by marking important messages and placing them at the top. You can teach it to better categorize e-mails by marking incoming messages as important or unimportant.

Instead of the number of all unread e-mails, Priority Inbox displays the number of those marked as a priority, which will appear as “Important and unread.” Priority Inbox can also be set to automatically mark messages from specific senders (bosses, friends, spouses, etc.) as important.

E-mails that you’ve starred will have their own section while the rest of your unarchived inbox will appear as “Everything else.”

Priority Inbox will be rolling out over the next week or so. Find the new feature in the top right corner of your Gmail account or in the tab in Gmail settings. Check out this video to learn more!