How to label Gmail automatically
Gmail can label your mail automatically today. The catch is that you have to describe, in advance and in writing, every email you will ever receive.
Gmail filters
- 1Open Settings › See all settings › Filters and blocked addresses › Create a new filter.
- 2Describe the mail: from an address, containing certain words, with an attachment, and so on.
- 3Choose what happens — apply a label, skip the inbox, mark as read, star it.
- 4Tick "Also apply to matching conversations" to sweep the mail already sitting there.
- 5Repeat for every sender and every phrase you can think of.
Where it gets tiring. Filters match text, not meaning. "Invoice" catches an invoice, a marketing email about invoicing software, and a colleague asking whether you have sent the invoice. They also need maintaining forever: a supplier changes their billing address and the rule you wrote in 2024 silently stops firing.
With MailGeni
Labels applied by reading the email
- 1Connect Gmail or Outlook. Nothing to configure — no rules to write.
- 2Each email is read as it lands and given one of eleven labels: Respond, Receipt, Meeting, Fill Form, Sign Contract, Notification, Marketing, Travel, Finance, Action or Social.
- 3The ones that need you look different from the ones that do not: actionable labels carry a little colour, passive ones stay quiet.
- 4Tap a label to file the email under it, and undo it if it was wrong.
Because it reads the message rather than matching words, the judgement calls come out sensibly: a bank statement is a Notification rather than something to Respond to, and a meeting only counts as a Meeting when there is both a date and a time in it.
Questions people ask
- Does it change my Gmail labels or settings?
- No. MailGeni shows its labels in its own panel over Gmail. It does not rewrite your Gmail label list or change your mailbox settings.
- Can I still use my own filters?
- Yes. They are unaffected — the two run alongside each other.
- What happens to receipts?
- They are recognised as receipts and can be filed and exported as a set, which is the bit that matters at quarter end.
Checked on 15 September 2026.