Priority Inbox, the name seems cool. Now you can set the importance to your mails in Gmail. Mark them as Important, Not Important, Starred and it will be shown under these categories. When you receive a mail next time, if it was marked as important earlier then it will be deliver to Important Label.
Let us take an overview of Gmail’s Priority Inbox.
After enabling Priority Inbox what all changes you see in you Inbox:
- You can see a new Label Important under your labels.
- A Priority Inbox link just below Inbox
- A new tab in Settings – Priority Inbox
What you can do with Priority Inbox:
- You still have access to your Inbox. It is a good feature to have both Inbox and Priority Inbox. It is not the case that after you enable priority inbox you would have access to Priority Inbox only. You can easily switch to Inbox anytime by clicking on Inbox link in the left navigation just above Priority Inbox. and again you can shift back to Priority Inbox from Inbox.
- Under settings of Priority Inbox you can enable and disable it.
- Set what should be the default view when you load your Gmail. You can choose from deafult priority Inbox, default inbox, or the last time used inbox.
- Hide the section when it is empty
- Can minimize and expand these sections
- How many mails to show in each section
- Mark a mail as Important and Not Important
- There are some cool things you can do.
- After enabling Priority Inbox, make Inbox as your default loading Inbox. Now, you can load your Important labelled mails in your normal Inbox too by using Multiple Inboxes feature from Labs. Just create a multiple inbox with is: Important as search query.
- If you are using Multiple Inboxes and Multiple Inboxes doesn’t show in Priority Inbox, you can create upto 3 Priority Inbox sections by selecting More Options and selecting a particular Label.
What if I haven’t marked an email as Important, where it will go for the first time?
It depends on Gmail’s wish. (it seems that by looking at the past interaction with this email contact, Gmail will mark it as Important and not Important).
I have my Multiple Inboxes enabled, now after enabling Priority Inbox my Muliple Inboxes aren’t showing.
Don’t get stressed. They are right there. Click on Inbox just above Priority Inbox link of the left navigation. And you can now access your old Inbox with Multiple Inbox as they were earlier.
How useful is Priority Inbox and how to get best from it
Priority Inbox is useful for users who gets lot of mails daily in their inbox. When you get hundred of mails in your inbox either you have applied filters to them or you manually do it. Sometimes, it may happen that filters may filter some other mails too which should have actually reached Inbox. You have applied filter and directed these new mails to some label because you do not want to read these mails (like some mails that you receive daily and you don’t read). With Priority Inbox you can mark them as Unimportant. Your important mails will be shown on top.
It could be very useful when you have either forwarded mails from your various accounts to a particular account or you can many accounts from one account. Priority Inbox can provide you with much better access and management to these mails.
While using Priority Inbox, the Inbox seems to be very cluttered. But there is a great way to unclutter it too. Choose an option Hide Section when Empty and this section won’t be shown.
So, is it useful for you, if you receive very few mails daily
Yes, it could be.
Say, you receive only 10 mails on an average daily. There is a possiblity that some mails that you receive are important. What you can do is that, you can enable Priority Inbox feature and Multiple Inboxes (from Labs). Set Inbox as the default Inbox. Create a multiple inbox is: important and it will be shown in your Inbox now. This way you can see which are the important mails right in your Inbox for quick reference. More over you can use a Filter too. Create a filter in which important mails aren’t shown in Inbox i.e. they should skip inbox, other wise you will see same mail twice in your Inbox and under Multiple Inbox – Important.
What more feature should Priority Inbox have?
- More sections should be allowed
- Should be able to hide sections when no new mail is there in a particular section (currently it is when there is no mail in the section)