I don’t consider myself a power Gmail user, in the contrary I know a lot of folks that manage their email inbox with a ton of labels and special filters. What I am is curious and of the school of thought that you should address all your email messages as soon as possible. I like a clean inbox with no unread messages because unread message just scream ‘deal with me’.
In Gmail, I was looking for a way to show all of my unread emails in one view. I have a modest inbox with 3000+ emails. Out of those 3000+ emails I have 4 unread messages. I simply don’t have the time or desire to navigate through pages of emails to track those few unread messages and deal with them accordingly. I looked all around for an option that would allow me to view all unread email in one view but to no avail. I looked in the More Actions and the different default folders such as Inbox, Starred, etc.
I eventually found how to see all unread email message after noticing that when you click on the Trash folder the search box will display the search query in:trash. It dawned on me that I might be able to read all unread email messages in one page view if I enter in:unread in the search box instead. As you may imagine, in:read also works and give a listing similar to what you get when you log into GMail.
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Now that GMail has their Multiple Inbox feature/view, you can now set up a small section for the in:unread so that you always have quick access to your unread items
3000 emails in inbox ? Haven’t you heard of Inbox Zero ? I always archive my emails to keep only the emails I didn’t read or didn’t yet took action upon. I find it’s the best way to avoid forgetting an important email. For those emails I don’t want to lose track, I find the Star feature quite interesting.
You should give it a try!
@Sébastien – I’ve heard of Inbox Zero. My take on that is not to delete the emails, but to have a zero unread inbox. This is why figuring out how to view all my unread emails was import to me.
I like to deal with emails quickly, either reply, delete, or just ignore as already read. For example, if I read an email but I want to address it later, I’ll mark it as unread so that later I am reminded and can deal with the tasks required or requested in said email.
Again, this is the technique that works for me, I use unread emails as reminders of tasks waiting to be done.
There is a great Google Tech Talk by Merlin Mann on Inbox Zero for those who have not heard of it.
The downside of using just the “in:unread” query is that it shows *everything* unread, which includes unread emails that you may have archived or moved out of the inbox and under some other tag.
I’ve found “in:inbox is:unread” to be the most useful query. (And yes, “is” is equivalent to “in”, as are the letter “l” and the word “label”).
HTH
Someone help me I have read many suggestions how to remove the old unread emails from gmail I have entered i un read un read etc into the search section with no results I have 232 unread emails in my inbox going way back.
@James – From GMail, enter in:unread in the search box and hit Search Mail. This should list all unread email. Hope it works.
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