20 Ways to Use Gmail Filters (Gmail过滤器的20个巧妙用途)

Filter

One of the coolest things about Gmail is its filters — set up properly, filters can add loads of functionality to your already-powerful Gmail account. Save time and space, rid your inbox of unwanted emails, and turn your Gmail into a multi-functional tool with simple filters.

There are some limitations to Gmail’s filters that I’d like to see improved in the future, including:

the inability to mark a post as read
the inability to create live “smart folders”
difficulty in adding a large number of email addresses to a filter

But all in all, the filter function is very cool. Here are some ideas for how to use it:

Killfile. If people send me too much junk mail (jokes, chain mail, etc.), they get added to my killfile. It’s a simple filter that looks at the “from” field and deletes the message if it’s one of the addresses I’ve added to the filter. Every now and then I’ll decide to add someone to my killfile, and I’ll just open up the filter and add their address.
Booleans. The filter works much like Gmail’s search function, in that you can add search terms such as AND or OR or NOT. So I can look for addresses that are from a number of people (using OR), or emails that must include all of the words on a list (using AND). Use search operator symbols to make it even easier: “|” for OR, space for AND, “-” for NOT, and parentheses to group different terms in your search string.
Other search terms. Beyond the common terms above, your filters can use other terms such as “from:”, “to:”, “has:”, “is:”, “filename:”, and “label:”, among others. Using these terms, you can make your filters even more powerful.
Send reminders to someone. One of the things I wish Google would add to Gmail is the ability to send a delayed email. This would allow me to send reminders to someone at regular times. Instead, I sign up for a reminder email service to send reminders (meant for other people) to my gmail address, and then set up filters to forward the reminders to various people depending on the subject or content of the email. It’s not perfect, but it allows me to send reminders to different people on a regular basis.
Calendar and log. I set up Google Calendar to send me reminders of events. You can set up a label (”events”) so that your calendar reminders go straight to the label, star the message, and skip the inbox. Now not only are your events in one place, instead of scattered through your inbox, you can unstar the message when you complete the task or event, and now you also have a log of all the things you’ve done.
To-dos. This is a commonly used function, but you can email yourself tasks that you need to do, and then set up a filter that has your email address in both the “to” and “from” boxes, that applies the label “to-do” to the message. This will allow you to view all your to-dos in one filter. Or, if you’re a GTD fan, you could set up to-dos for each context (@work, @home, @errands, @phone, etc.), by creating different labels for each, and then setting up filters for different email addresses. Email yourself at yourname+work (you don’t need the @gmail.com part), and set up the filter to label that address “@work”, and so on for each context.
Follow up. Even if you’re not a GTD fan, having a follow-up label is a must. Simply set up a filter with an email address such as “youname+follow” and put it in the “has the words” filter field, and have this filter label it “@follow” and skip the inbox. Now when you send out an email that needs to be followed up on, put yourname+follow in the “bcc” field, and it’ll go into your “@follow” label. Be sure to check this label once a day so you can follow up on your emails.
Send spam to trash. Instead of having Gmail-filtered spam go into your Spam folder (and have the annoying count of unread spam by the folder’s name), set up a filter with “is:spam” in the “has the words” field (just click “OK” on Gmail’s warning dialog box when you click next step) and “Delete it” as the action. Now all spam messages will go in your trash.
Archived bookmarks. If you use del.icio.us and other bookmarking services, you can archive them all in a Gmail label (”bookmarks”). Get the feed urls for each of your bookmarking services, enter them in a forwarding service such as rssfwd.com, and then set up a filter to label them all “bookmarks”. Now all your bookmarks are in one place, with Gmail’s great search.
Attachments. If you’re like me, you like to go through your old emails and delete a bunch of them at a time. I do common searches during the cleanup process, such as “has:attachment”, so that I can look through all my bigger emails and delete them. Make this process quicker by making a label and filter for this search, and for any of your common searches, for that matter.
Media. If you get a lot of media sent to you, such as music files, videos and photos, set up filters (”filename:wmv | filename:mov” for videos, “filename:mp3″ for music, filename:jpg | filename:gif” for photos, or “filename:pdf | filename:doc” for documents). Now you can quickly find any media.
Backups. Create a second Gmail account for storage, and create a filter to automatically forward any emails with attachments (”has:attachments”) to this second address. Now you can delete your old emails without guilt or worry.
Newsgroups or feeds. You can set up filters for your newsgroups, so they don’t clog up your inbox. Or forward your favorite feeds to your Gmail, and automatically label and archive them for later reading. Now you can not only access them from anywhere, but you can search them too.
Bloggers. If you run a blog, you can have all your blog’s comments and pingbacks automatically archived and labeled (”blog”), so your inbox doesn’t get filled up fast. Also have your blog stat reports mailed to you and shunted to this label, so you can get a quick look at your blog’s success at a glance.
Delete old sent emails. There’s no reason, in most cases, to keep your really old sent emails. Delete them. Create a filter with “before:2006/06/01 label:sent” with “Delete it” as the action (you’ll need to click “OK” to Gmail’s warning dialog). Every month or so, update the date of this filter.
No delete. Some emails you don’t want to delete — those precious ones from your kids, for example, or maybe ones from your boss. Set up a label (”nodelete”) and a filter that puts the nodelete label on emails from (or to) the addresses you want. Now, some of the above filters, add the string “-nodelete” so that it doesn’t show these emails. Now you can delete your old sent emails, or your attachment emails, for example, without worry that your kids’ or boss’ emails will be trashed along with the rest of the riffraff.
Flickr. Forward your Flickr account’s feed to your Gmail, with a filter to automatically label it, and now your photos are searchable through Gmail. You can also set up filters to send notices that certain tags in your Flickr account has new photos to certain relatives.
Notes. Email yourself notes on web research, on meetings, on books you’re reading, on classes you’re taking. Set up a filter to archive and label them (if you send notes to yourname+notes, for example). Now they’re searchable and archived and accessible from anywhere.
Twitter. Use your mobile phone to send text messages or IM messages to Twitter, with a keyword at the beginning of each Twitter message (NOTE, TODO, BLOG, FOLLOW, etc.). Forward your Twitter account’s feed to your Gmail, and set up filters for each type of keyword (”note twitter” will be labeled “note” for example). Now you can use your mobile device to send notes, to-dos, follow-up reminders and more to your Gmail through Twitter.
Wildcard. Use the wildcard character (*) for companies that use multiple types of address from the same domain. One great use I’ve seen is to use the wildcard character for vendors such as Amazon or eBay to make it easier to track online purchases. Create a label (”online shopping”) and a filter with such email addresses as “*@amazon.com|*@ebay.com|*@paypal.com|*@barnesandnoble.com”.

译文如下：

Gmail最酷的一个功能就是它的过滤器(Filter)——通过适当的设置，过滤器可以大大增强本已十分强大的Gmail邮箱。通过建立一些简单的过滤规则，就可以节省下很多时间及空间、删除收件箱里不要的邮件甚至把你的Gmail变成一个多功能的工具。

当然，Gmail的过滤器也有一些不足，希望Gmail能在今后改进这些功能：

无法通过过滤器标记邮件为已读
不能创建一个灵活的文件夹
很难将一个长的Email地址加入过滤规则

但总的来说，Gmail的过滤功能还是非常棒的。这里有一些技巧可以帮你了解如何用好它：

Killfile。如果有人给我发送很多的垃圾邮件（恶作剧邮件、多链接的邮件），他们就会被加入我的KillFile。看一下发件人处的Email地址是否已经存在于我的Killfile过滤规则中，如果已存在，就删除这封邮件；如果没有，那么就把这个Email地址加入Killfile的过滤规则中。
逻辑命令。过滤器的工作机理类似于与Gmail的搜索功能，所以，你可以使用一些搜索指令如 AND OR NOT。当我要找一些人的地址时，我可以使用OR；当邮件中都包含一系列的关联词汇时我可以用AND。使用搜索运算符会使这个过程更简便："|"表示OR;"-"表示NOT；空格表示AND；圆括号用来把你的搜索语句中的不同条件组合起来。
其他的搜索命令。除了上述一般的过滤命令外，Gmail过滤器还可以使用如“from:”, “to:”, “has:”, “is:”, “filename:” 及 “label:”, 使用这些搜索命令会使你的Gmail过滤器更加强大。
发送提醒邮件。我希望Google能对Gmail增加的其中一个功能就是定时发送邮件。这可以使我能够按规定时间发送提醒邮件给别人。而目前，作为替代我注册了一个可以发送提醒邮件到我Gmail的服务，然后依据邮件标题或内容的不同建立过滤规则以使提醒邮件转发至不同的人。这不是非常的完美，但却容许我根据一定的规则发送提醒邮件给不同的人。
日程和日志。设置Google Calendar发送事件提醒。你可以创建一个名为事件(Event)的标签，创建一个过滤器使Calendar发送的提醒跳过收件箱放在这个标签下。现在，你不仅可以把你的项目事件放在一处（不再像以前一样分散在收件箱里），而且当你完成这个项目或工作后也不必去给它们添加标记，并且你还有了一个项目全过程进度的日志。
要做的事(To-dos)。这是一个普通的应用，你可以给自己发送一封需要做的工作的邮件，然后创建一个过滤规则：收件人和发件人都是你的信箱地址，并且使邮件都直接发送到To-dos标签下。这样你就可以在一个标签内看你的所有的“要做的事”。或许，你是个GTD爱好者，你可以为每个内容创建To-dos（如@工作,@家庭，@出差，@电话，等），通过创建不同的标签，发送邮件到 yourname+work@gmail.com（通过使用+号，你的Gmail可以有无限个地址），然后创建过滤规则让这些邮件转移到@work标签内，其他的同上。（注：GDT=Getting Things Done）
会话式邮件(Follow up)。如果你不是GTD爱好者，那么创建一个会话标签将是非常必要的。建立一个“包含字词”部分为“yourname+follow”的过滤器，并设置这里的邮件跳过收件夹直接存入“@follow”标签下。以后当你发送需要跟随后续内容的邮件时，在抄送地址里输入yourname+follow，这样这些邮件就会放入“@folow”标签中了。注意，你要每天检查一下这个标签，这样才能看到你的会话式邮件。
将垃圾邮件直接删除到已删除邮件。作为替代Gmail自身的垃圾邮件过滤功能（我们讨厌看到在垃圾邮件这个文件夹后跟着一个很大的数字），创建一个过滤器：在“包含字词”部分输入"is:spam"（点击下一步，Gmail会弹出一个警告，选择“是”即可），在选择操作部分，选择“删除”。以后垃圾邮件就会自动放到“已删除邮件”中了。
存档书签。如果你正在使用del.icio.us或其他的书签服务，你可以把它们存档在Gmail的一个标签下（如”Bokmarks”)。在像rssfwd.com这样的将Feed内容转发至Email服务的网站，输入你的书签的Feed地址，为它们创建一个过滤规则并存入“Bookmark”标签下。这样在Gmail强大的搜索过滤功能下，你的所有书签就都存放在一起了。
清理附件。你是不是跟我一样喜欢集中一次性删除旧邮件？在这个过程中我通常使用一些搜索命令，如“has:attachment”, 这样我可以方便地找到所有的大容量的邮件并删除他们。要让这个过程更加简单化，那就创建一个类似的过滤器吧。
多媒体文件。如果你收到大量的附有如音乐、视频、照片的多媒体文件的邮件，此时也可以创建一个过滤器来方便地找到它们。
视频文件："filename:wmv | filename:mov"；
音乐文件："filename:mp3"。
图片文件："filename:jpg | filename:gif"
文档文件："filename:pdf | filename:doc"
备份。注册一个新的用来储存文件的Gmail帐号，使用"has:attachments"的过滤规则将所有含有附件的邮件都自动转发到你的第二个Gmail信箱里。这样下次再删除旧邮件时就不用担心后悔了。
新闻组和Feed。你可以为你订阅的新闻组创建一个过滤器，这样它们就不会塞满你的收件箱了。也可以把你订阅的Feeds更新转发到你的Gmail，当你阅读后这些内容会自动标记并存档。如今，你不但在任何地方都可以阅读它们，而且还可以搜索它们。
Bloggers。如果你正在经营一个博客，你可以通过过滤器将你博客的评论和Pingback自动存档于"blog"标签，这样你的收件夹就不会很快被这些邮件填满了。再把你博客统计报告自动归档在这个标签下，你博客的成功在这里就一收眼底了。
删除旧的已发送邮件。大多数情况下，没有理由要保留那些旧的已发送邮件。使用"before:2006/06/01 label:sent"，动作为删除的过滤规则删掉这些旧邮件。每个月的时候，记得更新这个过滤规则中的日期。
禁止删除。有些邮件是不希望被删除的，比如那些来自孩子或老板的邮件，通过添加这些联系人的邮件地址创建一个过滤规则将它们移到“Nodelete”标签下。以后删除旧邮件或含有附件的邮件时就不必担心这些重要的邮件随那些垃圾一块被删掉了。
Flickr。创建一个过滤器将转发到Gmail的你的Flickr Feed自动存入一个标签内。现在，通过Gmail你的照片变得可以搜索了。你也可以创建过滤器接收来自某些tags或联系人Flickr更新提醒。
便签。给自己发送封邮件及时记下你在互联网上的发现、会议上的所得、书本上的感悟或者班级的讨论。使用过滤器将这些内容自动归档在一个标签下。如今，你可以搜索、存档并且在任何地方方便地取得这些内容。
Twitter。使用手机或聊天工具发送信息给Twitter（国内读者可使用饭否），在每条信息的开始加上一些关键字，如NOTE,TODO,BLOG,FOLLOW，等。转发你的Twitter Feed到Gmail，给每个类型的关键字创建一个过滤器（如，给note twitter创建标签为"Note"的过滤器）。这样通过twitter你可以使用手机发送你的便条，要做的事,提醒以及更多的内容给你的Gmail。
使用通配符。使用通配符(*)可以用来来找出那些来自某些公司的使用同一域名的的邮件。一个很好的利用就是使用通配符来跟踪自己在Amazon、eBay等网上商店的购物邮件。只需创建一个发件人如"*@amazon.com|*@ebay.com|*@paypal.com|*@barnesandnoble.com"的过滤规则即可。