I Love Gmail Priority Inbox

I've had Gmail Priority Inbox for about six hours and I am already in love with it.

If you haven't heard, Priority Inbox is a new tool from Google that algorithmically (i.e. automatically based on a few factors) separates your incoming email into two categories: Important and Everything Else.

For me, the emails marked Important actually reflect my own evaluation of them. So far, out of the hundred or so emails I've gotten, only one has been mislabeled.

I'm sure there is some magic in the machine somewhere, but really, just floating all the emails that are specifically addressed to me (as opposed to a listserve or where I'm CC'd) does wonders.

Over the six years I've had Gmail, I've signed up for a number of things that are no longer essential, but not so bothersome that I don't want to receive them. All my Google alerts for "history + solar," NASA press releases, or emails from my athletic club all fall into that category. Having a place to store them without cluttering up my main inbox is brilliant.

Could I have accomplished much the same thing by setting up a bunch of filters? Sure. But the extra work required always seemed to outweigh the minor hassle of not reading or deleting a bunch of semi-precious emails. Now, Google's done all the work for me in one simple stroke.

I did make one important tweak to the default Priority Inbox settings. The default setting is that your priority inbox only shows things that are Important and Unread. That made me feel uncomfortable. I like seeing the important things even after I've read them.

Priority Inbox might not be for everyone. If you're tidier about how you run your email already, maybe you don't need it. If you don't manage a huge volume of email, again maybe you don't need it. But if your email inflow is variegated and heavy, it will be a useful tool for you.

[Oh, one last note: Google rolls out new features progressively, so you may not have access to this functionality yet. If you don't, just sit tight. You'll have it soon!]