Organize and find email

 

On this page

• Switch to labels from folders
• Create rules to filter your email
• Star important email
• Search for messages
• Summarize email with Gemini
• Archive email instead of deleting
• Delete email permanently 

               

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Switch to labels from folders

In other email programs, you might have stored email in folders. In Gmail, you use labels to categorize your email. Labels are like folders, but with a twist—you can apply several labels to an email, then later find the email by clicking any of its labels from the left panel. You can also search by label.

Use labels to...

• Track the status of people's tasks. For example, create the labels Laura: In Progress and Laura: Done to indicate email that Laura is working on or has completed.
• Organize email by nesting labels like subfolders. For example, create the label Tasks. Under Tasks, create nested labels by person.
• Identify email that needs follow-up.
• Identify email that can be read later.

Create a label

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. On the left, scroll down, then click More.
3. Click Create new label.
4. Name your label.
5. Click Create.

Label messages in your inbox

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. Select the messages.
3. At the top, click Labels.
4. Select a label, or create a new one.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Create rules to filter your email

You can manage your incoming mail using Gmail’s filters for example, to send email to a label, or automatically archive, delete, or star incoming mail.

1. Open Gmail.
2. In the search box at the top, click Show search options  .
3. Enter your search criteria. If you want to check that your search worked correctly, see what emails show up by clicking Search. 
4. At the bottom of the search window, click Create filter.
5. Choose what you’d like the filter to do.
6. Click Create filter.

Note: When you create a filter to forward messages, only new messages will be affected. ​Additionally, when someone replies to a message you've filtered, the reply will only be filtered if it meets the same search criteria. 

Tip: Try these Gmail filters for work or school.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Star important email

When you star email in Gmail, you mark them as important. This helps you remember to look at them later.

Star an email 

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. From your inbox, go to the left of the message, then click Star . If the message is open, click More Add Star.
3. If you have multiple stars, keep clicking the star icon until you see the one you want to use.

See your starred messages

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. On the left side of the page, click Starred. You may need to click More first.

Tip: To find starred messages, you can also use search operators in Gmail.

• To find all starred messages, enter is:starred.
• To find messages with a specific star, enter has: followed by the star's name. The names are based on your current star options in use:
  • has:yellow-star
  • has:orange-star
  • has:red-star
  • has:purple-star
  • has:blue-star
  • has:green-star
  • has:red-bang
  • has:orange-guillemet
  • has:yellow-bang
  • has:green-check
  • has:blue-info
  • has:purple-question

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Search for messages

Search your email, chats, or spaces

1. Open Gmail.
2. At the top, in the search box, enter your search criteria.
3. Press Enter.
4. (Chat in Gmail enabled only) Choose where to search by clicking Mail, Conversations, or Spaces:
   • Mail searches your email.
   • Conversations searches existing messages in chats and spaces.
   • Spaces searches the names of spaces that you have joined and spaces that you can join. 

Narrow your email search

At the top of your inbox, search for one or more keywords that appear anywhere in the email—in the subject, body, or sender name. 

If you’re looking for something specific, click Show search options to use advanced search.

Example: Search for:

• Senders—Example: From:([e-mail])
• Date ranges—Example: after:2019/3/29 before:2019/4/5
• Keywords—Example: Company confidential
• Message attributes, such as attachments—Example: has:attachment

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Summarize email with Gemini

You can use this feature only if your organization supports it. For help, contact your administrator. Gemini for Google Workspace is available when your Google account language is set to an English dialect. Additionally, some features are available in Spanish and Portuguese. Learn more about language availability.

Get started with Gemini in Gmail

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Ask Gemini .
3. In the side panel, select a suggested prompt or write your own prompt.

   Select a suggestion

   1. Select from the list of suggestions.
      • To get more options, select More suggestions.
   2. At the bottom, in the prompt box, replace the example text with the info that you want.
   3. Press Enter.

   Enter a prompt in Gemini

   1. At the bottom, in the prompt box, enter a prompt.
   2. Press Enter.
4. Optional: To remove your history, click More options Clear history.

Tip: To avoid losing your history, copy a suggestion into your email. You lose your conversation history when:

• You refresh your browser.
• You close and reopen Gmail.

Explore Gemini in Gmail

Action	Description
Ask Gemini	Open Gemini.
More options	Clear your recent Gemini history and ask for more suggestions.
Expand	Make Gemini larger.
Collapse	Return Gemini to its original size.
Close	Close Gemini.
Clear history	Remove all generated text and images you did not insert into the document yet.
More suggestions	Find more suggestions from Gemini.
Copy	Copy a suggestion.
Retry with Google Search	Search on Google for more information about your question or request.
View more	View more of the response from Gemini.
View less	Minimize the response from Gemini.
Good suggestion	Give positive feedback about a response from Gemini.
Bad suggestion	Report an issue with a response from Gemini.

Things to ask Gemini in Gmail

Summarize an email thread

Gemini can summarize an email thread with more than 2 replies.

• If the side panel is open, Gemini summarizes the email thread when you click What’s this email about?
• If the side panel is closed, at the top of an email thread, click Summarize this email.

In the side panel, you can also prompt to ask for a summary.

• Examples:
  • “Summarize this email.”
  • “Create a list of action items for me based on this email.”
  • “Explain this email to me like I’m 5 years old.”

Suggest reply options

Gemini can draft a new email or a reply.

• To get suggested replies:
  1. On your computer, open an email thread.
  2. Click Ask Gemini .
  3. At the bottom of the side panel, click Suggest a reply.
• To draft a new email, ask Gemini to create the draft.
  • Examples:
    • “Write an announcement email for the launch of Project Clover.”
    • “Create a thank you note to a colleague for their work on Project Clover.”

Find information from previous emails

Gemini can get information on reservations, flights, packages, and other emails sent to your inbox. For example:

• “When is my package arriving?”
• “What time is my next flight?”

Search for certain types of emails

Gemini can search for your emails that are unread, from a specific date range and from specific people. Gemini will load the results in a Gmail search. For example:

• “Show my unread emails.”
• “Emails from [person] sent last week.”
• “Show unread emails from this week.”

Find information from your Google Drive files

Gemini can reference files and documents from Google Drive. For example:

• “What are the main points of the weekly team meeting notes from my documents?”
• “Summarize my document for Project Clover.”

Tip: To check files that Gemini used in its response, click Sources.

Get help with Gmail

• “Where can I edit my email filters?”
• “How can I create a label?”

Ask questions from the web

Important: To get answers from the web, make sure to include phrases like “Use Google Search” or “Using web search” in your prompt.

• “Write a paragraph describing the weather today in Mountain View, California using web search.”
• “Help me write a paragraph explaining if lightning can strike the same place twice using only information from the web.”

Get information about your events

Important: Gemini in Gmail can only give you information about events on your primary calendar.

• “What’s my first meeting tomorrow?”
• “When’s the next time I’ll meet with Lori?”

Create events

Important: Gemini in Gmail can only create events on your primary calendar.

• “Schedule a lunch block for tomorrow at noon.”
• “Create a weekly run on Fridays at 8 AM.”

Give feedback on generated output

Gemini for Google Workspace is constantly learning and may not be able to support your request. Because feedback may be human readable, please do not submit data that contains personal, confidential, or sensitive information.

If you get a suggestion that’s inaccurate or that you feel is unsafe, you can submit feedback. Your feedback can help improve AI-assisted Workspace features and broader Google efforts in AI.

1. Below the generated output, select Good suggestion or Bad suggestion .
2. If you select Bad suggestion , you can select the issue you found and enter additional feedback.
   • To review data that will be attached with your feedback, at the bottom, select What data will be attached?
   • If you don’t want to include the data with your feedback, uncheck Attach collected data to your feedback to help us improve the product experience.
3. Select Next.
4. Review additional context that you can share with your feedback.
   • If you don’t want to include the additional context with your feedback, uncheck Additional context (content referenced to create outputs).
5. Select Submit.

To provide general feedback about Gemini, at the top, click Help Send feedback to Google.

To report a legal issue, create a request.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Archive email instead of deleting

Archived email messages move out of your inbox but stay under All Mail, so that you can find them later.

Archive an email

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. Open the message you want to archive.
3. At the top, click Archive .

Tips:

• To archive multiple messages, click the box next to each message Archive .
• To archive a message with keyboard shortcuts, press E. Learn more about keyboard shortcuts.

Find archived messages

Important: When you search in Gmail, your results include archived messages. Learn more about search in Gmail.

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. On the left, click More.
3. Click All Mail.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Delete email permanently

When you delete a message, it stays in your trash for 30 days. After 30 days, the message is permanently deleted from your account and can't be recovered.

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. On the left of each message you want to delete, check the box.
3. At the top, click Delete .

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

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