How do I set up filters in Gmail?

Last reviewed: September 23, 2026 · Markdown version

A filter is a standing instruction: "when mail matches this, do that." Gmail's help describes filters as a way to "manage your incoming mail", and it builds them from a search — which means if you can find the mail, you can filter it (Create rules to filter your emails, read 23 September 2026).

Building one from a search you already trust

Run the search first and look at the results. from:noreply@shop.example, category:promotions older_than:1y, subject:"order confirmation" — whatever matches exactly the mail you mean and nothing you would miss. Google's filter page suggests the same check: see what emails show up by clicking Search, then "At the bottom of the search window, click Create filter" and choose what the filter should do.

Doing it in that order matters. A filter built from a guess quietly acts on mail you wanted; a filter built from a search you have just read is a filter you have already tested.

What a filter can do

Google's own list is short: filters can "send email to a label, or archive, delete, star, or automatically forward your mail". In practice:

Archive it — the gentlest option: the mail leaves the inbox but stays searchable.
Apply a label, so it is filed without ever interrupting you.
Delete it — which in Gmail means moving it to Trash, where it stays recoverable for 30 days (Delete messages in Gmail, read 23 September 2026).
Star it, or forward it — and note Google's caveat that a forwarding filter affects only new messages.

What the help page does not spell out is whether a new filter also acts on the mail already in your account. So do not rely on it for the backlog: the search you built the filter from already shows you that mail — select it and deal with it there.

What a filter cannot do

It cannot unsubscribe you — that is not one of the actions Google lists. Filtered mail is still sent and still received, and if you only label or archive it, it still takes space: Google counts "Gmail messages and attachments" against your storage (How your Google storage works, read 23 September 2026). A filter is a way to stop seeing something, which is the right tool for mail you need but do not want interrupting you — order updates, alerts, statements — and the wrong tool for a newsletter you are simply done with. Which tool for which problem.

The practical limit: making them one at a time

Filters are excellent and they do not scale by hand. The senders filling an inbox are rarely five; they are eighty, discovered slowly, each needing a search, a review and several clicks. And Google's filter instructions are written for a computer — the page opens "On your computer" — so on a phone there is no documented way to build one.

Where we fit

Adinand Email Cleaner groups your Gmail by sender so the eighty are visible at once, and its auto-trash rules are real Gmail filters — created through Gmail's own API and running inside Gmail itself, not inside our app. That has a consequence worth stating: the rules keep working if you delete the app, because they were never ours to begin with. Three of them on the free tier, unlimited on Pro.