Gmail for Work Leave: Filter all incoming emails to folder
June 29, 2018 12:13 PM Subscribe
While on leave from work I want to send all incoming email to a folder that I can access when I get back, leaving my inbox empty until I turn this setting off.
I've googled around this question but haven't found exactly what I'm looking for.
- Workplace uses Gmail
- Leave will be a year-ish, so want to avoid thousands of messages that will need to be archived.
*I don't want to auto-archive everything that comes in because if I get a, "I emailed that to you while you were away" I can have a chance of finding it in the While I Was Away folder.
Does this function exist? I know about sending specific emails to a folder but I want to capture literally every single email that will get sent to me and send it to it's own folder. I get a lot of company email from different people, outside email from customers, etc.
They'll get an auto reply, but I still don't want to see their email in my inbox when I get back.
I have seen this: http://shanelabs.com/blog/2013/08/05/gmail-filter-for-all-incoming-mail/ but you can't pick a folder for all the mail to go to - just an email address to forward to.
I've googled around this question but haven't found exactly what I'm looking for.
- Workplace uses Gmail
- Leave will be a year-ish, so want to avoid thousands of messages that will need to be archived.
*I don't want to auto-archive everything that comes in because if I get a, "I emailed that to you while you were away" I can have a chance of finding it in the While I Was Away folder.
Does this function exist? I know about sending specific emails to a folder but I want to capture literally every single email that will get sent to me and send it to it's own folder. I get a lot of company email from different people, outside email from customers, etc.
They'll get an auto reply, but I still don't want to see their email in my inbox when I get back.
I have seen this: http://shanelabs.com/blog/2013/08/05/gmail-filter-for-all-incoming-mail/ but you can't pick a folder for all the mail to go to - just an email address to forward to.
You can even do larger:0 if you want to convince yourself that it will truly catch everything.
That said, and just to make you understand how this works: although gmail has done some UI things to make it act like folders, gmail doesn't actually have a folder system. It has labels. The "inbox" is just everything with the "inbox" label, and archiving an email just removes that label. If you don't want to do set up this filter now, it will take literally a few moments when you get back to select everything in your inbox (you have will have to click 2 buttons to do this), apply a "received while out" label, mark as read, and archive. You can of course do that now too, but it won't be faster or easier than doing it later. (In fact slightly harder, since you'll have to remove the filter when you come back)
posted by brainmouse at 12:29 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
That said, and just to make you understand how this works: although gmail has done some UI things to make it act like folders, gmail doesn't actually have a folder system. It has labels. The "inbox" is just everything with the "inbox" label, and archiving an email just removes that label. If you don't want to do set up this filter now, it will take literally a few moments when you get back to select everything in your inbox (you have will have to click 2 buttons to do this), apply a "received while out" label, mark as read, and archive. You can of course do that now too, but it won't be faster or easier than doing it later. (In fact slightly harder, since you'll have to remove the filter when you come back)
posted by brainmouse at 12:29 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
In a similar situation, upon return I created a “emails from when I was out” folder and dragged everything in my inbox into that folder upon return.
posted by asphericalcow at 12:42 PM on June 29, 2018
posted by asphericalcow at 12:42 PM on June 29, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
Skip the Inbox (Archive it)
Apply the label: While I Was Away (you might have to choose New Label first, if this label doesn't exist yet)
posted by JDHarper at 12:23 PM on June 29, 2018 [5 favorites]