Gmail's Smart Labels to automatically organize Bulk and other special emails

Google has added another Labs feature to Gmail, called Smart Labels. If you've used labels in Gmail, you understand the concept of labels, but Smart Labels automatically label certain messages that hit your inbox as Bulk, Notification and Forum messages.

What does that mean? "Bulk" messages are mass mailings (such as newsletters and promotional email). “Notifications” are messages sent to you directly as opposed to a mass mailing (such as account statements and receipts). Group mailing list emails are labeled as “Forums.”

These Smart Labels are really just another Filter. If you go into your Filter settings, you can see them there, and edit them, as well. You can even edit your existing filters to avoid having them Smart Labeled. Strangely, the Bulk label says it is supposed to skip the inbox, but when we tried it, it didn't work on our inbox.

Additionally, it would be nice to be able to edit filters en masse if I want a bunch of them to avoid being Smart Labeled. That type of functionality doesn't seem to exist.

If you notice a message that was mislabeled, you can report that to Google by using the the drop-down menu on each message. However, Google notes that by doing so, you’ll "donate the full message to our engineers," which means they'll be able to read it. If you feel privacy trumps that, you'll have to live with the mislabeling.

Remember, it's currently a Labs feature. To enable it, go to Settings, Labs and then find "SmartLabels."

Via: TechCrunch