A Great Little Tip (60 Secs Work For BIG Benefits)

Here’s a lovely little tip which will take you less than 60 seconds to set up but has BIG benefits!

Please click PLAY below to see it….

Did this help you? Please Like & Tweet if you enjoyed this and drop a quick comment below, I’d love to hear from you! Cheers, Rob. 🙂

73 Comments

Rick on February 28, 2013 at 10:39 am

Hi Rob
Blinking fantastic mate ! That tip is going to save me endless hours of wasted time trying to sive through the crap to find the gold.

Only wish I’d known about it years ago.

Rick Ellwood
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:49 am
  
  Hi Rick,
  
  Brilliant, really pleased you liked it 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
- Peter Burritt on November 9, 2015 at 12:47 pm
  
  Hi Rob….on my gmail, settings do not provide Filters today, and I even did a search on gmail settings for “filter” or “create filter”:
  
  nothing turned up,,,any suggestions?
- Rob on November 11, 2015 at 10:18 am
  
  Hi Peter,
  
  I’ve never encountered that before Peter so I’m really not sure I’m afraid. My advice would be to search Google again and see if you can find a solution. If you’re seeing this then someone else must have had the same problem!
  
  Cheers, Rob.
John Banks on February 28, 2013 at 10:48 am

Useful tip – I do this but with my outlook account. In fact I filter everything through my gmail accounts to there too. And then into seperate folders for peoples lists.

The other thing I do I have it set up on my mobile phone, but not the filtered accounts. This basically just allows me to delete unwanted emails on the go. Saves time when I get back to my computer at home.

Nice vid – what are you using to make these videos? I have had a go with screen o cast (free version)……

Regards,
John
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:51 am
  
  Hi John,
  
  Great extra tip, thank you for sharing that with us 🙂
  
  The video was done in Camtasia, then uploaded to my Amazon S3 account (although you could use YouTube) and played on the blog using wordTube+JW Player.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.
- BillyDee on February 28, 2013 at 12:06 pm
  
  The free version of ActivePresenter is excellent. Cheers, BillyDee.
Guy Van Overmeire on February 28, 2013 at 10:57 am

Hi Rob
I like what you showed.
But the question is still what do I write to my customers, because if you read all the e-mails, you can’t just copy them to your list and send out.
Or do you make up something related to the subject, with the content of the emails received from other companies?
Thanks and looking forward to more.
Guy Van Overmeire
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:53 am
  
  Hi Guy,
  
  Yes exactly, you use the topics that the emails discussed to write your own blog posts/emails. The technique is also very useful for looking at how often the other competitors send out emails as well 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
Chris Fletcher on February 28, 2013 at 11:03 am

What a great tip – top notch – thanks Rob!
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:53 am
  
  Thanks Chris – glad you enjoyed it 🙂
  
  Cheers!
  
  Rob
Robert Mason on February 28, 2013 at 11:05 am

Hi Rob

That’s a great tip about using filters in Gmail – thank you very much, much appreciated!

Robert
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:54 am
  
  You’re very welcome Robert, it’s a big time saver for sure so I hope you reap the benefits!
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
larry on February 28, 2013 at 11:17 am

Hi Rob, This is such a time saver. Thanks. I have a question though.
When you have your own websites in various niches and contact details on them. Do Know how you funnel all those emails to one account rather than lots of separate email accounts?
Thanks again
Larry
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:56 am
  
  Hi Larry,
  
  Thanks for your feedback on the video 🙂
  
  And yes, I do exactly that. So a contact email address (e.g., support@mynichesite.com) for each website you own but then connect those to your single GMail account. You can set that up in “Account & Import” in the GMail settings. A full tutorial is in the Technical Toolbox section of Gain Higher Ground Membership.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
Julie Pell on February 28, 2013 at 11:19 am

OMG I love you! I have just spent an hour going through all my emails. Why didn’t I know about this? Thank you rob!
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:57 am
  
  Hey Julie,
  
  Thank you! Great to hear you liked it 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
BillyDee on February 28, 2013 at 11:51 am

Thanks for the tip Rob. I do use the Gmail filters, but hadn’t thought of the ‘espionage’ angle.
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 11:58 am
  
  Haha – yes, “espionage” is a good word for it!
  
  Thanks for your feedback and great to see you here on the blog 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
Guy Van Overmeire on February 28, 2013 at 12:03 pm

Hi Rob
Thanks for your feedback.
I red your article about outsourcing, great content, makes me thinking using outsourcing from nou on.
Keep up the good work.
Guy
Reply
Walter on February 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm

Hello Rob

This is such a great tip and one that I’ll be using asap. With so many emails coming in, it can be a real pain to sort and go through them. The filters in Gmail can be working away in the background, doing all the hard work.

Great work!

Walter
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 1:20 pm
  
  Hi Walter,
  
  Yes, we’ve moved on a lot from the “You’ve got mail!” days!
  
  Glad this helps 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.
Reggie Hobbs on February 28, 2013 at 12:06 pm

Hey Rob,

Great tip because I like most people subscribe to a ton of stuff and it is unmanagable. Just want to wish you the best in your business.

Reggie
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 1:20 pm
  
  Hi Reggie,
  
  Very well said and thank you for commenting.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
Jo O'Connor on February 28, 2013 at 12:20 pm

Thanks for a great tip.

Jo
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 1:20 pm
  
  You’re welcome Jo, thank you!
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
Paul on February 28, 2013 at 12:40 pm

Super cool tip Rob, never thought about this before, WOW!
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 1:21 pm
  
  Thanks Paul, great to see you here on the blog!
  
  Cheers – Rob
IanWhite on February 28, 2013 at 12:58 pm

Hi Rob,

Great tip for sorting emails.

Following on your suggestion about using your competitor’s emails as ‘fodder’ for your own blog posts, I use a similar strategy.

I set up a ‘Google Alert’ for whatever subject / niche / keyword etc and get my alerts sent via email.

A quick tip I use time and time again when I get ‘Blogger’s Block’ and I can’t think of anything to write, is to use someone else’s relevant blog post or newspaper column / article and to actually ‘critique’ their post, breaking down the points they make and evaluating them.

Obviously this won’t work with a direct competitor but most industries have ‘Market Authority Leaders’ who write regular articles.

Simply take those articles and agree / disagree / suggest alternatives etc.

Hey Presto … a blog post of your own 🙂

Hope this helps those of us who sometimes sit empty-headed staring blankly at a blinking cursor 🙂

Regards

Ian
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 1:22 pm
  
  Hi Ian,
  
  Excellent tip there – thank you for sharing with us 🙂
  
  Cheers!
  
  Rob
Russ on February 28, 2013 at 2:35 pm

Hi Rob:

Nice advice. Used to use folders in outlook to manage data, but the emails still appeared in the in-box. The fact that this does appear in the in-box is amazing. I know I going to place all the IM email pitches in there. They waste so much time, even the deleting of them without opening them up. Same old, same old pitch. Naturally you will not end in that folder as you truly provide value. Thanks mate.
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 4:09 pm
  
  Hi Russ,
  
  Yes, it’s a really nice feature with GMail. Well worth considering switching over maybe…
  
  Cheers!
  
  Rob.
Mike on February 28, 2013 at 3:20 pm

Hi Rob, this is very interesting and I will use it ASAP. Thanks again.
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 4:09 pm
  
  Great stuff Mike!
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.
Rhonda on February 28, 2013 at 3:50 pm

I love using Gmail’s filters. I just wanted to point out that there is an easier way with less steps needed and without needing to change screens at all.

While reading the email you want to filter, click on the ‘More’ button and the bottom option is ‘Filter Messages Like These’ and it will show you all the emails that will be filtered from that sender. Click on the blue link ‘Create filter with this search’ and then you get to the display where you continue with Rob’s steps by clicking the Archive checkbox and Apply label drop down. After doing these steps all emails from that specific sender will now automatically go into the correct folder.

Just thought I would mention it as I am a nut for time saving steps 🙂
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 4:10 pm
  
  Hi Rhonda,
  
  BRILLIANT and even better – thank you for sharing the tip! 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
- Rhonda on February 28, 2013 at 4:25 pm
  
  Oh I forgot to say , make sure you use the ‘Nested’ option as well.
  
  That way you can have say, a parent label saying’ Sports’ and then sub-labels for ‘Fishing’, ‘Golf’, etc.
  
  This way you don’t end up with lots and lots of random labels. You can also expand/collapse the labels to keep things nice and tidy. 🙂
Lesley on February 28, 2013 at 4:53 pm

I’ve been doing something similar to this myself but you sure made it a lot easier Rob.

Thank you for the tip!

Lesley
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 9:05 pm
  
  Your are very welcome Lesley, glad you liked it 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.
John on February 28, 2013 at 5:56 pm

Spot On Rob. Good bit of info – Thanks.
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 9:05 pm
  
  That’s great John, thank you for let me know.
  
  Cheers – Rob
Voilet on February 28, 2013 at 6:15 pm

Thank you so much for those tips Rob. I will certainly use them for
myself. Can always depend on you forsomething informative.

Thanks again

Voilet
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 9:06 pm
  
  My pleasure Voilet, very pleased you found this useful!
  
  Cheers, Rob.
Howard Lee Harkness on February 28, 2013 at 6:16 pm

I have used Gmail for years, but lately, I have had some problems with Google products (which I cover in my personal blog) which has caused me to lose my trust in Google.

I currently just forward all of my Gmail to a POP account that I own and access using Thunderbird, which has the same filtering capabilities, or better. It’s a bit more complex to set up than Google’s filter system, but I have control over it, and all of the emails are archived on my machine, and accessible off-line.

BTW, the Gmail filters are actually easier to set up than presented in your video. In the email, you can click on the “more” down-arrow, and select “Filter emails like this.” That lets you skip a couple of clicks.

But, as I said, I’m migrating away from Google anyway, because of the trust issue. I am avoiding using Google products for anything that would cause my business to suffer if they suddenly stopped working (which has already happened more than once), if for no other reason than Google has no concept of customer service — or more accurately, Google does not consider me to be their customer, and feels no need to support non-customers.

P.S. Good Lord! 35K+ unread messages in your inbox??
Reply
- Rob on February 28, 2013 at 9:08 pm
  
  Hi Howard,
  
  You have a keen eye there! Yes, a lot of “admin” emails that I just bypass.
  
  Great to hear your extra tips and experiences here 🙂
  
  All the best,
  
  Rob.
- Jeff Wilson on January 28, 2014 at 8:36 pm
  
  Further to HLH’s message, find How-To information regarding filtering using the Mozilla Thunderbird email client here:
  
  http://en.flossmanuals.net/thunderbird/ch029_filters/
  
  Rob’s >35,000 unread messages is indeed a bit out of control! How would he or his army of assistants ever have time to read and act on them? One certainly would not want so many messages stored locally on one’s computer, but that is exactly what happens with Rob’s tip if one configures the Thunderbird client to download and store messages from a POP server.
  
  IMHO, this calls for a hybrid approach. Use Gmail to receive and filter messages non-critical to ones business, such as from newsletter subscriptions as per Rob’s tip. Use Thunderbird (or the email client of your choice) to receive business-critical email and store it locally.
  
  I offer no suggestion as to where to store cat video links.
- Rob on January 29, 2014 at 7:35 am
  
  Thanks Jeff, much appreciate you sharing your thoughts and experience on this. Well thought through as ever from you 🙂
  
  Kind regards,
  
  Rob.
Renee on March 1, 2013 at 2:57 am

Hi Rob:

Many times I’ve wished that I could apply filters in gmail. I thought it couldn’t be done. Thanks for showing me how!
Reply
- Rob on March 1, 2013 at 7:20 am
  
  Great stuff Renee – glad this sorted it out for you 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.
Dave Wedge on March 2, 2013 at 9:50 am

Hi Rob,

Great stuff as usual, simple but really useful.

I have been sending all email to my Inbox and one of my to-do list items was to sort this out, instant solution!

Great to meet you at London Lunch last week by the way.

Cheers, Dave
Reply
- Rob on March 2, 2013 at 11:25 am
  
  Hi Dave,
  
  It was great to meet you too & glad you liked the tip!
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
Ray Cowin on March 2, 2013 at 11:02 am

Thanks for this tip. I have used this in the past but always did so manually; from now on life will be much easier!
Reply
- Rob on March 2, 2013 at 11:26 am
  
  Thanks Ray, very pleased you found it useful 🙂
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob
Roger on March 2, 2013 at 11:56 am

Great tip.

Email eats up so much time, anything to make it more efficient is welcome.

Cheers

Roger
Reply
- Rob on March 3, 2013 at 10:16 am
  
  Great stuff Roger, thanks for letting me know 🙂
  
  cheers,
  
  Rob
Kevin on March 2, 2013 at 12:43 pm

Hi Rob

I’ve been using the filter system on Gmail for quite a while now and I can confirm that it’s a very simple but incredibly useful tool.

But these are the sort of tips that make your newsletter such a find for me – more power to you !!

Cheers

Kevin
Reply
- Rob on March 3, 2013 at 10:16 am
  
  Hi Kevin,
  
  Thanks for the confirmation 🙂
  
  All the best,
  
  Rob
Joe on March 2, 2013 at 4:07 pm

Excellent idea – I have just cleaned up my Gmail box.
Many thanks
Reply
- Rob on March 3, 2013 at 10:17 am
  
  Taking action already, excellent stuff Joe!
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.
igor Griffiths on March 6, 2013 at 7:03 pm

Well Hello Rob

Great tip on how to use the knowledge of the market to direct your marketing. Gmail is great for filtering but also cleansing your computer email accounts by redirecting all your emails through a dedicated gmail account. This gmail account will filter into the spam folder all the messages that they consider spam before its sent on-wards to your pc inbox.
Reply
- Rob on March 6, 2013 at 7:55 pm
  
  Thanks Igor, good to see you here on the blog and thank you for your extra tip 🙂
  
  Cheers!
  
  Rob
Ken on March 13, 2013 at 10:43 am

Hi Rob
My ‘thicko’ characteristic is energing again and I feel so ashamed at not already knowing all about this that I have not dared to raise the subject.
This blog makes so much sense but I need to know about emails generally.
All I use at present are the addresses I get through my broadband provider and my hosting account and to me gmail etc. are just different service providers.
I would love to see you write more blogs on the subject starting with the basics.
I found this blog very instructive
Many thanks
Ken
Reply
- Rob on March 14, 2013 at 8:42 am
  
  Hi Ken,
  
  Please don’t feel bad about not knowing. Everyone has to learn this kind of stuff at some stage and tackling it straight on as you are doing is definitely the best way. Others who bury their heads in the sand will find trouble further down the road!
  
  If you have a specific question about email or other essential computing tips then searching YouTube and Google for tips is a great place to start.
  
  But I appreciate your comment and will keep it in mind for future updates so thank you again 🙂
  
  Rob
Charlotte on March 14, 2014 at 4:40 pm

Hi Rob,
I implemented this about 2 weeks ago. I am trying to set up in the personal development niche. I found the people at the top of the niche (the kind of people that won’t send out a solo for less than 1000 clicks) http://cytmedia.com/solo-ad-rolodex/ . After spying on their lists I was horrified to find that their email sequences have NO actual content – they are just sending solos out for other people/. I was expecting to see something like 3 days useful content then 1 day promotion for themselves/ a solo for someone else. I now have nothing to imitate.
Really don’t know where I’ve gone wrong. I’m really confused – these people can send 1000+ clicks so they obviously have people engaging with their emails – how can this be when their lists have no useful content? This goes against everything I have been taught. Do you have any advice as to how I can find content filled lists in this niche that I can imitate? (I do not feel comfortable with spamming people – I would much rather provide useful content).
Thanks.
Reply
- Rob on March 15, 2014 at 9:26 am
  
  Hi Charlotte,
  
  Thanks for your comment and for sharing your experience here.
  
  You are right that you’ll always get better responses and make money money in the long run by providing free quality content. But of course, not everyone does this as you’ve found. You’ve done nothing wrong and I wouldn’t let this stop you buying some solo traffic from some of these lists. By providing more content you’ve got every chance of a great result as the sign ups you get will probably be people who will really like your style after being exposed to just promotions previously!
  
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.
Michael D Gorman on February 15, 2015 at 12:17 am

Extremely useful tip – thanks so much Rob, it is just what my Gmail account is needing!
Hope you are settled with the new family addition and your partner is nicely recovered, it is quite a big event in anyone’s life 🙂
Cheers
Michael
Reply
- Rob on February 16, 2015 at 5:11 pm
  
  Thanks Michael, glad you enjoyed it and yes we are coping well with the new addition to the family 🙂
  
  Cheers, Rob
Nick East on November 2, 2015 at 4:32 pm

Hi Rob
Excellent tip ! Using this now.
Reply
- Rob on November 4, 2015 at 8:11 am
  
  Great to hear that Nick, thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂
  
  Cheers, Rob.
Jo on November 3, 2015 at 6:11 pm

thanks Rob, that is a great tip on how to manage gmail. I get lots of emails and a lot I want to keep, so this is a way of doing that. Thank you again.

Jo
Reply
Henriette and Kobus on October 31, 2016 at 12:30 pm

Also very nice! And both Henriette and I have Gmail accounts!
Thanks Rob.
Reply
Carl on February 9, 2017 at 8:35 pm

Rob, There is now one more thing you can do AFTER you set up the filters. Now go back to your inbox, check the emails you have filters for but are still appearing in your inbox, and then click “Archive”. And presto. All of those messages disappear. But they are not deleted, only archived in the respective folders. That helps to declutter your inbox of 35,000 + emails. lol.
Reply
- Rob on February 9, 2017 at 10:58 pm
  
  Great tip, thanks Carl 🙂
  
  Cheers, Rob.