Corralling Group Emails

One of the more common complaints we hear about Peddie email is that emails sent to groups (e.g to the Class of 20xx or FacultyStaff groups) fill up your inbox making it hard to quickly process the more important emails sent directly to you. If there were an easy fix for this we would have implemented it years ago. We have looked at many different options from Google Groups to custom applications, but in every case the cure either would not work or would be worse than the disease.

However, don't despair! There is an effective way to corral these emails using Google email labels and filters. Below is an example of how to do this for emails sent to the Class of 2015 group.

Example: Corralling emails sent to the Class of 2015 group.
After following the instructions below, all emails you receive that are addressed to classof2015@peddie.org will skip your inbox and the label _Class of 2015 will be applied to these emails. Whenever new messages arrive, the _Class of 2015 label will be bold and the number of unread messages will appear next to the label. While this will not reduce the number of message you receive, it will keep these messages from swamping your inbox and allow you to process them much more efficiently when you have time.

1. In your email, click the small gear icon in the upper right of the screen and select Mail Settings.
2. Go to the Labels tab and click the Create new label button. When naming your label, we recommend prefixing it with an underscore or the number zero so the label will appear at the top of your label list. (e.g. _Class of 2015 or 0 Class of 2015). You might also find it helpful to click the show if unread setting which will cause the label to be hidden if it contains no unread messages. Also, make sure the show setting is selected (if it is not a link, it is selected)--this should be the default setting.
   
   
   
3. Go to the Filters tab and click the Create a new filter link at the bottom of the page.
4. Enter classof2015 in the To: field and then click the Next Step >> button.
   
   
   
5. Select the following actions: Skip the Inbox, Apply the label: _Class of 2015, Never send it to Spam. Leave the Mark as read setting unchecked.
   
   
   
6. Click the Create Filter button. To return to your inbox click the inbox link on the left side of the page.

Advanced Filtering Tips
The example above was for a simple filter applied to all messages sent to classof2015@peddie.org. For many, simple filters like this will be all that you will need, but if needed filters can do much more. Below are some examples of more complex filters. When entering complex filters, you should enter the entire filter expression in the Has the words: search criteria field.

Example 1: Suppose you want to create a filter to include all-school emails (i.e. emails sent to all of the classes and to faculty and staff). To do this, enter the following in the Has the words: field:

to:(classof2015 AND classof2014 AND classof2013 AND classof2012 AND facultystaff)

Example 2: Suppose you want to create a filter to filter emails sent only to students (i.e. emails sent to any "class of" group but not to faculty and staff). To do this, enter the following search expression in the Has the words: field. Note the "-" in front of the "to:" which prevents emails sent to facultystaff@peddie.org from matching the filter.

to:(classof2015 OR classof2014 OR classof2013 OR classof2012) AND -to:(facultystaff)

The two examples above just scratch the surface of what is possible. For a complete description of all the advanced filtering/searching options available please see the Google help article Using advanced search.

Lastly, if you don't know how to create a filter to do what you want, stop by the Technology Center or send an email to techhelp@peddie.org and we will be glad to help.