gmailgmail-categories
Gmail has an automatic categorisation feature that sorts mail into various categories (social, promotions, updates, etc.). I would like to have an "Updates" tab, but I would like to disable the automatic categorisation so that the only mail that goes into this category is mail that I set up a filter for.
I currently have my mail going into a label, but labels aren't quite as nice as the tabs that categories have.
Is there a way to prevent mail automatically being assigned to a category?
A listing of other users expressing (various degrees of) outrage over the same topic can be found here. As before, the accepted solution doesn't work.
However, one person found a temporary solution using Adblock Plus (here, first message on Jun 26 (of 2013, I assume)):
It's not a problem to do this at all: go to ABP filter preferences, then select "Custom Filters" tab, then "Element Hiding Rules", then click "Add Filter". Now add following eight filters:
mail.google.com##.J-N[title="Social"]
mail.google.com##.J-N[title="Promotions"]
mail.google.com##.J-N[title="Updates"]
mail.google.com##.J-N[title="Forums"]
mail.google.com##.J-LC[title="Social"]
mail.google.com##.J-LC[title="Promotions"]
mail.google.com##.J-LC[title="Updates"]
mail.google.com##.J-LC[title="Forums"]
This seems to work for me. It's really regrettable, since the data is still there, the problem is still there, and this is really just a workaround that may break if Google changes the website's underlying code.
Still, in light of the fact that the "correct" solution to the problem doesn't seem to fix anything, there's not much else I can do. This temporary solution is permanent for me, unless Google can fix the underlying problem.
1st step delete any filters that might have been setup (Found under settings > filters)
2nd step only enable the tabs you want (Under main Gmail page)
3rd and last step go to your spam folder > select all and press not spam
From here you will have removed all unwanted filters and marked everything that isn't spam as not spam for Gmail and you can manage what is and isn't from there
Note:
I'm unaware of any way completely disabling Gmail's built in spam filter
Work around search in:anywhere is:spam select all and mark not spam periodically
Best Answer
It's not possible to prevent mails from being automatically assigned to a category. You can disable tabs though.