An unofficial blog that watches Google's attempts to move your operating system online since 2005. Not affiliated with Google.

Send your tips to gostips@gmail.com.

November 1, 2012

Gmail Smart Label for Social Updates

Gmail has a new smart label that groups messages received from social networks, blogs and more, so you don't have to create complicated filters. You'll find messages from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Blogger, Quora and other social sites.

Just like the previous smart labels for notifications, forums and bulk messages (now called "promotions"), the new smart label can be hidden, renamed or even removed from Gmail's settings page.


Smart Labels is a Gmail Labs feature, so it's not enabled by default, it's still an experiment and it "may change, break or disappear at any time". "Smart Labels help you classify and organize your email. Once you turn it on from the Labs tab in Settings, Smart Labels automatically categorizes incoming Bulk, Notification and Forum messages, and labels them as such," explains Google.

22 comments:

  1. Looks like they liked the feature offered by Alto Mail by AOL! Nice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wonder if it works on email updates from popular forums platforms as well! Checking it right now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent feature. This was definitely needed, actually lot of people have already created custom label and filter to organize such emails.

    Good to see Google understanding customer needs and customizing products as per that. This is small but an important lesson for us - entrepreneurs/app-preneurs/wantrepreneurs - out of this new feature.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Still can't recreate the filters and labels after deleting them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Disable and enable again the "Smart Labels" experiment.

      Delete
  5. Now could those labelled emails automatically pass the inbox and go to those respective folders?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, create a filter, select the Social Updates label, ignore Gmail's warning and select skip the inbox. To create a filter, click the small arrow from the search box.

      Delete
    2. If you go inside a SmartLabel, there's a little checkbox at the upper right corner that make them skip the inbox folder

      Delete
    3. Thanks marc - just what I was looking for!

      Delete
  6. So why is just this particular Social Smart Label getting into my inbox? I was perfectly happy with the old smart labels. Now you've tried to improve it and broke it.

    Old wisdom: "if it's not broken don't fix it!"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't see why these messages should skip the inbox (they're not spam), but you can create a filter that archives the messages using the new label.

      Delete
    2. I can't edit the filter. There is a bug. I had to create another filter to just remove the emails from inbox. Annoying.

      So why remove them from inbox? Because there are just plain notifications. I don't care if someone tagged me on Facebook. I'll see it the next time i log in there. I like to keep my inbox notification free.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, if I ever tried to edit it just said "Hey fill in the info!" so, I used the matches code words in helps of getting that to work.

      Matches: label:^smartlabel_group

      Matches: label:^smartlabel_newsletter

      Matches: label:^smartlabel_notification

      Matches: label:^smartlabel_promo

      Matches: label:^smartlabel_social

      I have most of this stuff ditch to my inbox for the RARE occasion that my inbox is used for when actual human beings send me an e-mail.

      Delete
  7. Smart Labels are a great feature, and one on which I've become dependent to keep my inbox sane. But we absolutely need a way to customize the actions (and names) attached to them. For example, I'd like Social Updates kept out of my inbox. In fact, I had this working prior to this latest change, but now it's broken and those emails are bleeding back into my inbox, with no apparent way to fix it. That really, really sucks. Please fix this.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Agree with Jon - this worked perfectly before they changed it!

    ReplyDelete
  9. While editing the smart filter I accidentally removed it somehow. How do I add this smart filter back in! D:

    ReplyDelete
  10. Enable (or Disable, and then Enable) it again from Labs.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Can anyone tell me how I can make a filter to automatically move social updates into my trash folder?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. never mind i just made a filter to move mails that contain "we found somebody you may know on Twitter" to the trash.

      Delete
    2. No need for that. Click the "social updates" label, click the small arrow from the search box, create a filter, ignore Gmail's warning and enable "delete it".

      Delete
  12. I love this smart labels option, its a great way to keep all your social media updates in one place.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.