Gmail Filter Idea

So I love my Gmail account. It’s available everywhere I need to go, it’s easy to access, you can build ontop of it with new lab features, and it’s powerful enough to support filters. Well, okay, most of the filters I’d want…

See, I consider myself a power Gmail user. I import multiple email addresses in, and as such, I rely on filters and labels to keep what remains of my feeble mind intact so that I can actually manage the bulk of information that flies thru my Inbox every single day. So this is what my normal Inbox looks like:

My problem is, as you can see I have for instance a tag for “Family”, that I must then manually add each individual of my family to that filter or they’re not properly handled. What I would really like to see is the capability to add a filter based on a contact group, for instance:

from: group(Family)

That way everyone that is in my “Family” contact group would automagically become a part of the filter that would add the “Family” label to their email so that I could more easily manage those emails. It’d flow with my own personal design concept of “add information in one place, and instantly allow it to propagate to other locations”. I dunno, for all of Gmail’s wonderful features, this is the one that sticks out like a sore thumb in my mind and screams “Need to fix!” Who knows, maybe we can look forward to this capability when Wave is polished a bit more and opened up to the anxiously waiting beta list?

Otherwise, I absolutely adore my Gmail account, and highly recommend one to anyone interested in keeping their mail with them on the go. Or hell, even if you’re not on the go, not having to worry about your computer crashing out on you and losing that oh-so-important email makes me sleep easier at night.

It could just use that one more feature…

Here’s to hoping!