Set Up Multiple Gmail Filters By Editing An XML File

Matt Thommes at the Paint in the Tech blog finds it tedious to create filters in Gmail the multi-click way. His solution? Export a single filter, then make a few clever tweaks to the resulting XML file. Thommes doesn’t get too in-depth in exactly how the XML reads and can be tweaked, but shows how, if you’ve got a filter that works for silencing certain emailers or smartly labelling certain mail, you can easily add other email addresses or actions to it by firing up your editor:

Here we are setting up a filter to capture incoming email from joe@site.com, and applying a label of “Web.” Just like the Gmail process of setting up new filters, you can apply as many labels as you want, as well as other directives, such as sending directly to Trash:

… or immediately archiving:

If going this route might give you a little more Gmail power, you’d do well to read up on your advanced Gmail search operators, and maybe download our 10 must-have Gmail filters for a bit of inspiration. If you find a dirty/clever hack by editing your own XML filter files, let us know in the comments.