Use Aliases and Filters to Get More Out of your Existing Gmail Address

One of the easiest ways to want less is to stop constantly exposing yourself to advertising and marketing. Unsubscribing yourself from retailer email lists is a simple way of eliminating wants from your email inbox.

Not too long ago, The Simple Dollar posted about creating a separate email address for collecting deals via retailer email lists. His theory is that you want to be on those mailing lists so that when you are going to be buying something from one of those retailers anyway you can check for deals but you should keep them separate from your regular email so don’t have to look at those mailing list emails on a daily basis.

I liked that idea but I didn’t really like the idea of having to manage another email address. I already have two for work, two personal email addresses, and my blog email address that I go through every day (work not on the weekends at least).

Aliases

Then I happened across a very, very exciting thing in the Gmail help files:

Using an address alias

Gmail doesn’t offer traditional aliases, but you can receive messages sent to your.username+any.alias@gmail.com. For example, messages sent to jane.doe+notes@gmail.com are delivered to jane.doe@gmail.com.

You can set up filters to automatically direct these messages to Trash, apply a label or star, skip the inbox, or forward to another email account.

Now when you sign up for mailing lists you can put a +alias behind your gmail user name and easily be able to sort them out from your inbox. They’ll be there when you want to look for a deal but you won’t be tempted by offers every time you check your email. I suggest using +thecompanyname when signing up for free sample offers and such so that if you do start getting spam you know who it came from and you can direct that alias to your trash.

Filters

I’m combining this new feature with another gmail feature that’s been around for awhile but I haven’t previously taken much advantage of: filters. Here’s my new system to get those offers out of my inbox and away from my eyes but still have them available for when I do need them (for example, Vision Direct sends out a coupon code for 10-15% off my contacts once or twice a month and I want that handy but I only need to order every six months).

1. Check the box to the left of an email from the retailer you want to filter out of your inbox
2. Press the “more actions” button then choose “filter messages like these”
3. Double check that the filter criteria makes sense and finds the messages you want it to find then press “next step”
4. Check “skip the inbox”, “mark as read”, and “apply the label” retail offers or whatever label you’re using for this type of messages
5. Also apply the filter to however many other conversations it finds then press “create filter”
6. Repeat each time new emails that you want to filter out come in

My goal is to filter everything that isn’t a personal message to me or something requiring my immediate attention out of my inbox and to an appropriate label.

Anything I don’t really need to ever read like retail offers gets marked as read as it comes in. Other things like bank confirmations get left unread so I can check my email once or twice a day to review those messages. Keep in mind that you can search for “is:unread” to get a quick list of all your unread messages.

This will drastically reduce the time I spend managing my email. Up until now, I’ve been checking it every few minutes which I’m especially bad about because anything that hits my gmail inbox as unread goes to my iPhone and makes it beep so I always know when I have something new to check. After some refinement over the next few weeks, only the messages I actually want to read immediately should ever make it to my inbox and everything else can be reviewed at my leisure.

Shared in Tackle It Tuesday.

Related posts:

1. The Best of It’s Frugal Being Green: August 2009
2. Farewell 2009!
3. The Best of It’s Frugal Being Green: July 2009
4. Decluttering the Computer
5. Is It Worth Ordering Another Item to Get Free Shipping?

Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | learn more about subscribing