How to Organise Your Gmail Inbox

Gmail is built on labels rather than folders, and that can be liberating once you stop trying to recreate Outlook inside it. Labels are basically tags: an email can wear more than one. Keep them broad,

• “Action”

• “Waiting”

• “Read Later”

• “Clients”

- and use colour to make the urgent ones pop.

Organise with Gmail Automations

Where Gmail really helps is automation. Filters are ridiculously powerful. You can train Gmail to recognise anything from a sender’s address to a single word in the subject line, then automatically label it, star it, archive it, or skip the inbox entirely. That way, newsletters can bypass your Primary tab and land neatly in “Read Later”, while messages from your boss can arrive starred and highlighted as important.

The “Snooze” feature is a godsend too. If something isn’t urgent now but will be next week, snooze it. It vanishes from the inbox and reappears on the day you need it, as if your future self sent it to you. And if you ever get stuck in a long “reply all” chain you don’t need, hit “Mute” and let Gmail file the noise out of sight.

Here’s a quick look at how Gmail stacks up:

Feature	How Gmail does it	Why it’s useful
Prioritisation	Priority Inbox, Important markers	Surfaces the right mail
Automation	Filters + labels	Sorts mail before you see it
Deferring	Snooze	Brings it back when needed
Noise control	Mute conversation	Kills reply-all storms

Used together, these features let you keep your inbox lean without endless filing. The idea is simple: Gmail does the sorting, you do the deciding.

Want the full playbook, not just the highlights? Check out our Guide to Organising Your Work Inbox (for Remote Workers)