How to Set Up Email Filters in Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook

How to Filter Emails in Gmail

When you start editing Gmail filters, you might notice that Gmail doesn’t use actual “folders.” Gmail calls these labels, but aside from the different names, they’re functionally identical.

To get started with creating Gmail filters, open your Gmail inbox, and click on the small arrow icon to the right of the search bar at the top. This opens the advanced search box, allowing you to specify attributes for the filters.

Here’s how these work:

Enter an email address in the Form field to apply the filter to messages from that address.

The * character is a wildcard, so you can enter *@domain.com to filter all messages from a specific domain.

The To field pairs nicely with Gmail aliases. Anywhere that you enter your email address, you can add a plus (+) after it to create unlimited alternate addresses that all go straight to your inbox.

The Subject field allows you to filter any message containing certain words in the subject.

If you like, specify a size that the message is greater or less than.

Use Date within to filter by messages received close to a certain date.

If you want to look only for emails with an attachment, check the Has attachment box. And if you often chat with Hangouts in Gmail, you’ll probably want to check Doesn’t include chats to cut down on the noise from those.

Finally, leave the Search box on All Mail unless you only want to filter from a certain existing label.

When you’re done, click the Create filter button in the bottom-right corner of the window. If you want to make sure the filter is correct, click Search first to show emails that match it.

Customizing Filter Actions

Next, you’ll need to decide what happens to the email that hits this filter.

If you’re trying to keep a clean inbox, choosing Skip the Inbox (Archive it) is a good first step. Paired with this, you can add a star, attach a label so you know what to do with that message later, or mark it as important.

There are additional options here, which may come in handy depending on the filter you’re setting up. Never send it to Spam is useful if Gmail is sending legitimate messages there.

How to Set Up Yahoo Mail Filters

To set up filters in Yahoo Mail, open your Yahoo email inbox, then click the gear icon in the top-right and choose More Settings. Select the Filters tab located on the left, then select Add new filters to start one.

Yahoo doesn’t offer as much filter functionality as Gmail. There are four fields to customize: From, To/CC, Subject, and Body. You can name filters, which lets you quickly review them on the main Filters tab without having to check the details.

The categories are self-explanatory; for each one, you can choose to filter email that contains, does not contain, begins with, or ends with selected words. You also have the ability to match cases, which could be handy if you’re looking to filter all-caps acronyms.

Once you’ve completed the filter criteria as desired, you can choose which folder to move the matching messages to.

How to Filter Emails in Outlook

If you use Outlook.com for your email, here’s how to filter messages.

Open your Outlook inbox and click the Gear icon at the top-right, followed by All Outlook settings at the bottom of this list. Make sure Mail is selected on the left tab, then choose Rules on the next list. Finally, click Add new rule to make a fresh filter.

You’ll need to give the filter a name. Next, open the box under Add a condition to see the available options.

There are many of them, in which Outlook breaks into groups. For example, one category is My name is, in which you can select I’m on the To line, I’m on the CC line, I’m not on the To line, and similar. If you want more than one, click Add another condition below the first box.

There are too many for an exhaustive list here, but some of the most helpful include:

My name is > I’m not on the To line catches emails in which you were CCed or mass emailed.

Marked with > Importance or Sensitivity to catch messages using the sensitivity or priority levels specific to Outlook.

Received > Before or After to filter messages by date.

Once you’ve set your conditions, you’ll need to specify at least one item under Add an action. You can choose to move or copy the message to a folder or delete it.