Gmail Usability: Too many filters but no feature to manage them
If you are like me, have hundreds of filters in your gmail. Then you must be having this usability problem too.
I have lots of filters, some are important and some are just for organizational purposes. Some of the important ones, just because they start with a letter that are at the end of the alphabet (eg. T,S,W etc), they end up being placed at the end of the list.
And every time you want to check your gmail, you need to scroll down, if there is any email inside that filter. I usually apply “skip inbox” feature for all the emails that are placed in special filters.
Current Solution
Currently you can add symbols or numbers before your filter names and they will show up on top of the list. For example if you have Web2.0 as the filter name, normally it will show up at the end of the list, but if you add * Web2.0 or $ Web2.0 then it will climb to the top of the list. Similarly if you can add numbers like 1 Web2.0 to make it appear on top of the list.
Suggested New Feature
Why not introduce small arrows for pushing up and pushing down the filters?
You click once on up arrow and the filter goes up by one position, you click once on down arrow and it goes down by one position. Simple yet effective. And most importantly it would make gmail much more usable - user friendly.
Your opinion
Do you have similar problem? If yes, how do you manage it? And in your opinion how best to solve this usability problem?
Ping: gmailblog.blogspot.com (I am gonna ping gmail blog, so that they will take note of this post, hopefully).
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By Peter on Dec 27, 2007
I agree, it is a problem but I think you belong to very small group of power users that might have that many labels. So small in fact that it isn’t justifiable to implement this feature.
By Arstan on Dec 27, 2007
Another thing I noticed from my friends, they have bunch of unread emails in their inbox. I ask them why do they have it? They say its kinda difficult to find unread ones. I’m sure there are ways to search them using some specific tags but hey its all about usability, isn’t it? Keep it simple?
By kjusupov on Dec 27, 2007
- Some sort of “ranking” of the filters (based on usage frequency?)
- When creating a “From” filter - auto-complete e-mail address
By Ades on Dec 27, 2007
Peter, I think this kind of feature should be there whether there is very few filters or way too many. Because user wants to order his/her filters according to his/her needs either way, irrespective of the number of the filters.
Arstan, sometimes when I want to read the email at a later time, I mark them “unread”. But sometimes this “later time” never comes, and these “unread” emails get buried in next pages. I wish (as you say) there was a way to show only the “unread” emails somehow. Maybe there is, anybody knows?
By Ades on Dec 27, 2007
Kamchy, that’s a very smart suggestion! I like it. I think that could be one of the options for auto-arranging the filters, besides arranging them alphabetically.
By Arstan on Dec 27, 2007
If you do a search using “is: unread” tag it shows only unread emails in your inbox. So it can be done but this should have been done by default. Just like Inbox, Sent Items, Drafts etc…
By Alan Johnson on Dec 28, 2007
Well Ades, as you’ve stated in your post as well, a simple way to take care of this issue is to simply add a number before the name of the filter.
For example, if “Partners” is your most important one you can have it named “1Partners”, if “Social Media” is your second most important one you can name it “2Social Media” and so on.
If you have more than 9 filters you want to keep on top you can replace “1Partners” with “11Partners” and “2Social Media” with “12Social Media”, for example, and you will have a way to sort up to 99 filters this way.
Best wishes,
Alan Johnson
By Elisha on Dec 28, 2007
I’m using gmail and used filters to organize my mails. I have the same problem with the usability. I hope Google will address this issue. By the way, very well presented post. Great job Ades!
Elisha
Administrator
Credit Card Rewards - Credit Card Reward Programs - Rewards Credit Card
By semmy.name on Dec 31, 2007
I have blogged about anoterh gmail thing here - the ridiculous security settings in Gmail a few days back:
http://www.semmy.name/index.php/159/gmail-security-settings-are-ridiculous/
By Car Purchase on Feb 15, 2008
I use gmail too. The filters suck though. I hope they will or have corrected that problem
By Balthasar Glättli on Mar 19, 2008
Hi folks,
Feature number 2 in the following post on the gmailblog http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/5-little-known-gmail-features-you-may.html
provides a solution to our problem: how to tag gmail emails. See more details and a link to a commented screencast demo of how to combine gmail and del.icio.us on:
http://www.glaettli.ch/2008/03/tags-fr-gmail-tagging-system-for-gmail.htm
best regards
Balthasar