That title is a bit of a mouthful.
Anyhow my issue is this: I can automatically apply labels to certain types of emails as they come into my inbox; but I have to file them away separately once I'm finished reading them (a real pain).
Alternatively I can apply labels to them and have them skip the inbox, but in this case I may end up not reading ones that are unopened (somewhat alarming!)
I thought that skipping inbox and applying a star would sort the issue; as I have specified that starred items should appear in the inbox. Then, when I've finished reading them, I could unstar them (not ideal, but a damn site easier than dragging them to their respective folders to file them!) However, this doesn't seem to work! Starred items only seem to appear in my inbox only if I have manually starred them.
Any ideas?
Best Answer
It appears that you have a misunderstanding of one of the best features of Gmail: labels.
Every message when Gmail ingests starts with the Inbox label. You can use filters to add labels to them, or in your case stars. If you tell Gmail to skip the inbox it strips the Inbox label from the message. Messages can have multiple labels, which is a great feature compared to folders.
When you are done working with the message all you have to do is select it and then click Archive, or if the message is already open click Archive. the archive button simply removes the inbox label. There is no need to drag the messages any where. The other labels are still attached to the message.
Removing the inbox label doesn't delete the message, it still exists. They can be found by searching for them using
label:mylabelname. All messages not deleted are found in All Mail. You can even use the Multiple Inboxes to quickly focus in on all messages with that label, or just click on the label when you have a message open.