Gmail – How to exclude a sender from conversation in Gmail

This answer assumes that all of the automated emails are sent from the same address.

I'm not sure how you've created your filter, but try filtering by the from: field only. If the automated sender's address is always something like no-reply@domain.com then set up your filter to filter on:

from: no-reply@domain.com

This will make sure all automated email will hit the filter. Then, when someone else replies to that address, the new sender's email will be different from the one listed in the filter, and allow it to hit the inbox as normal.

A strength of Gmail is the use of labels, instead of folders. You need to create a filter to automatically add a label to the message and automaticlly archive the messages.

To create a filer for a message that frequently is sent to you:

1. select or open a message you want to filter
2. Under the More pulldown select the command: Filter messages like these
3. You will then see the form open up with the FROM box filled in.
4. Google with then show you the messages that the filter has found.
5. Click create filter with this search.
6. You can now specify if you want to:
   • Skip the Inbox (Archive it)
   • Apply the label:
   • Also apply filter to x matching conversations.
7. Click create the filter.

Archiving the messages keeps the message, it just removes the inbox label from the message. Labels can be used to search using label:mylabel. Labels are listed on the sidebar menu so that you can quickly jump to a filter that just shows the messages with that label. Plus messages can have multiple labels.

You can edit/delete/create filters under Settings(gear)->Filter