Gmail – Filter all email using plus addressing

I can think of two options available, neither of which are elegant:

1. Add a -to:my-team@example.com to all the other filters that may archive the message.
2. Use a variation of the above but instead of hard-coding the address, add a descriptive label.

There's no option to send an email to the inbox via a filter. Your only option is to prevent the message from being archived in the first place.

Solution #1: This one's pretty simple. So, for example, say you have the filter:

• when mail matches to:other-team@example.com, archive the message

You need to change it to:

• when mail matches to:other-team@example.com -to:my-team@example.com, archive the message

To use this negation, it may be easier to type in the "has the words" box.

Using this solution doesn't require you to maintain the filter order. The only downside is that if you have multiple email addresses that you need to keep (e.g. my-team2@example.com, my-team3@example.com, etc.), using this method you would need to add all of those to each filter. This can become hard to maintain. That's where solution #2 comes in...

Solution #2: This one is more complicated and relies on the way Gmail processes filter rules. Basically it processes them from the top down. This means that if you modify one (which causes it to go to the bottom), you will need to remember to reorder your filters, so that it works correctly again.

You create the following filters, in this order:

1. when mail matches to:my-team@example.com, apply the label dont-archive.
2. when mail matches to:my-team2@example.com, apply the label dont-archive.
3. when mail matches to:my-team3@example.com, apply the label dont-archive.
4. when mail matches to:other-team@example.com -label:dont-archive, archive the message

When creating the last filter, it will warn you about using the label. This message can be safely ignored, since you ordered the filters correctly.

Tip for solution #1: Of course, if the email addresses are very similar, you might be able to use Gmail's limited stemming in order to use solution #1 with multiple addresses (e.g. instead of using -to:my-team@example.com, use -to:(my @example.com) which will also match my-team2@example.com in this case.

You could always negate your existing filter - I assume it's in the form from:(address1@gmail.com OR address2@gmail.com) and so on. If that's the case:

1. Disable the setting that is forwarding all your mail (Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > Forwarding > "Disable Forwarding").
2. Create a new filter that looks like the following (notice the dash before from:):
3. Therefore, only mail that doesn't match these conditions will be forwarded.

EDIT:

You can create a filter by entering your search first and clicking the arrow for "Show search options":

Then click the "Create filter with this search" button: