Sort Gmail Inbox by Sender
August 7, 2011 12:51 PM   Subscribe

How Do I Sort My Gmail Inbox by Sender?

The Gmail inbox shows messages by date, the most recent first. Is there any way to sort by Sender, so that I can read (or move or delete) everything by sender?
posted by KRS to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you click on "show search options" you can search by sender. You could also set up a rule to label everything from a particular sender so you can see it in its own... category? folder? I don't know of a way to actually put your inbox in a different order, though.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:00 PM on August 7, 2011


You can search by sender by typing in the search box: from:sendername (no spaces). That will at least bring up everything from that person.
posted by la petite marie at 1:03 PM on August 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


In the search box, you can type from:sender@gmail.com and you will see all mail from that email address, or any other you wish to sort for.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:04 PM on August 7, 2011


Best way to think about this: Google is based on search, not sort.

If you hover over an individual name, you can access the More button and click Recent Conversations, which will give you the results of both from:sender@example.com and to:sender@example.com.

If you do this frequently, you probably will want to create filters and labels so that you can access groups of messages more easily.
posted by dhartung at 1:29 PM on August 7, 2011 [3 favorites]


search and labels are the L-T solution but if you click on an email from the person you want to see, on the right side is information about the sender. If you click on that it will show all recent emails from that person.
posted by AugustWest at 4:17 PM on August 7, 2011


Agreeing with others who suggest a search-based approach. That's how Gmail is designed to work.

What I would do if I were you is go through your sent folder (is:sent)and go to the first message there: decide what you want to do with it (delete it, move it, mark it, etc..) and then do a search for all messages with that sender and do that to it. If you don't want to do *anything* to it, then append the label "sorted" to it.

Then repeat (except when you look at the sort folder, don't show anything that you've already sorted: is:sent -label:sorted).

This way you can go through everything pretty quickly. If your goal isn't to sort through EVERY SINGLE THING in your sent box, then I would suggest just scanning through the pages and taking selective action via the search bar when you see things that pop up. E.g. if you only want to delete everything you've ever sent to anyone with a .edu domain, that's pretty simple to do with a single search, then select all, and delete.
posted by brenton at 4:27 PM on August 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


If you're willing to access your Gmail through an email client instead of the web interface you can do it pretty easily (but you use most of the cool Gmail goodness that way).
posted by dolface at 5:05 PM on August 8, 2011


I have a solution!
I was going so far as to copying my inbox into a spreadsheet, then sorting it to figure out where the bulk of my emails where, and what I could archive/unsubscribe from etc, at which point I realised I really needed a better solution.

Here's my current approach:
In Firefox, download https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabletools2/
Then, right-click on any of the senders within the gmail inbox, and sort alpha-numerically.
It's just what it sounds like, so 'me, Otherperson' will be sorted under M, and 'Otherperson' under O, but it's better than nothing, and allows me to view and clear my inbox much more quickly.

This also allows you to sort tables in any website you visit. Haven't used it much, but it looks useful.
posted by Elysum at 4:39 PM on June 6, 2012


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