How to Filter your Gmail--101
The idea behind filtering your Gmail is to prevent your inbox from being cluttered with random assignments and correspondence. This works great in a classroom in which there are several periods taught and multiple students mass sending you assignments. This can also come in handy in your normal, everyday life--especially if you are involved in a lot of different organizations and are flooded with emails!
Here are the directions for setting up folders to sort your incoming mail:
1. Create a new label by going to your mail settings and look at the list of commands on the left-hand side (where you commonly click to look at your Inbox or Sent Mail)
2. Select Create New Label from the list (you may have to select the word More in order to see additional options)
3. Create a new label such as OSTA for the organization or P2 for Second Period.
4. At the top there are a list of tabs you can click on; click on the Filters tab
5. Click Create Filter with this Search
6. In the pop-up window fill in the subject line with something simple your colleagues or students can easily remember like osta or p2 so it goes into the OSTA or P2 file
7. Select the Skip the inbox button and the Apply the Label button. Be sure to select the label you would like (this should be the folder you created earlier) and select Create Filter
8. Now when you instruct others to use your filter you must remind them to include a space after the new filter in and then their subject. For example, the subject line for an email designated for the OSTA file might look like this: "osta every flavor beans lab" or for the classroom it might look like this: "p2 lab 3"
