What you want from a filter is an inbox that holds only the mail that needs you, with the rest filed where you can find it. When a filter "stops working", the filter has almost never broken. The mail changed, or the search never matched it. This guide finds and fixes the cause in a few minutes, then shows how Sortmail gets you the same inbox without any filters to repair.
The one-minute test
- Find a message the filter should have caught.
- Go to the gear icon, "See all settings", then "Filters and Blocked Addresses".
- Click Edit beside the filter, then click Search instead of Continue.
- Look for your message in the results.
If the message is not in the results, the search is the problem: see causes 2 to 5. If it is, the problem is timing or the action: causes 1, 6 and 7.
1. The message arrived before the filter existed
Filters act on mail as it arrives. A new filter does nothing to mail you already have unless you tick "Also apply filter to matching conversations", and that is a one-off. Fix: edit the filter, click Continue, tick that box and click "Update filter".
2. The sender uses a different address now
Companies send from many addresses, and change them. A filter on one exact address misses the rest. Fix: filter on the domain, or for newsletters on the mailing-list header from the List-Id line under "Show original":
from:(example.com)list:(news.example.com)3. Gmail matches whole words, not fragments
A filter for confirm will not catch confirmation, and there are no wildcards. Fix: list the variants.
subject:(invoice OR invoices OR receipt OR receipts)4. The search syntax is being read literally
- OR must be in capitals. A lowercase or is a word to look for.
- Phrases need quotes. Without them, each word can appear anywhere in the message.
- Group alternatives in brackets when combining them: from:(a.com OR b.com) subject:(receipt).
- A minus sign excludes. A stray hyphen in a pasted phrase can exclude what you meant to include.
5. The mail was not addressed to you directly
A To filter misses mail from a list, a group address, a Bcc or an alias. Match the address that received it instead:
deliveredto:([email protected])6. The filter worked, but the message is still in the inbox
"Apply the label" does not move a message. It gets the label and stays in the inbox, which looks exactly like a filter that did nothing. Fix: also tick "Skip the Inbox (Archive it)". Check the other inbox tabs too: a filtered message can be sitting in one with its label.
7. Another filter, or Spam, got there first
Every matching filter runs, and you cannot set an order, so two filters can both act on one message. Search your filter list for anything else that matches the sender. If Gmail marks the message as spam, it is only in the Spam folder; tick "Never send it to Spam" for senders you trust. Filters can only be edited in Gmail on the web.
Why filters keep breaking
If your filters are correct and you are still fixing them every few weeks, that is not bad luck. Filters match only what you anticipated. Your mail does not stay still:
- Every new shop, app and service is a sender your filters have never seen, so its mail lands in the inbox until you add it.
- Known senders change address or reword their subject lines, and the filter silently stops matching.
- A filter cannot tell a colleague from the automated notices sent from the same domain.
- Nothing warns you when a filter stops matching. You find out when the inbox fills up again.
Gmail’s inbox tabs do not fill the gap. They are fixed categories you cannot rename, they never say why a message went where it did, and there is no way to see what your moves taught them. Every one of these fixes is upkeep you keep doing for as long as you rely on filters.
How Sortmail sorts without filters to maintain
Sortmail sorts each message by what it is, not by which search it matches. It lands in one of five categories: Actionable, Personal, Receipts, Newsletters and System, which you can rename or add to, up to 8. The two that need you stay in the inbox. The rest become ordinary Gmail labels, or Outlook categories, and are archived.
- New senders are sorted on arrival, without anyone writing a filter for them.
- Address changes do not break it. Headers and, with model sorting on, a short masked extract decide where unmatched mail goes.
- Rules still come first, and they are predictable. A correction outranks a rule you wrote, and the same rule wins every time two match.
- Every message shows what decided it and how confident it was, so nothing is filed without a reason you can read.
- A mistake is fixed by moving the message. That writes a rule for the sender in the same step, for the mail that follows.
Message bodies are never stored. On Gmail, Sortmail does not ask for full account access, so it cannot permanently delete anything, and our code calls no send, draft or trash endpoint. A test fails the build if one is added.
Stop repairing filters
Connect a mailbox and Sortmail sorts the last 30 days of your inbox (up to 1,000 messages) free, showing where each message would go and why. It is a preview rather than a trial: nothing is written to your mailbox, no labels and no archiving, until you choose a plan. You judge it on your own mail before you pay anything.
One plan, with every feature in it: $8.99 a month, $79 a year or $139 for 2 years at the founding price, limited to the first 500 subscribers and locked for as long as the subscription runs. A year costs less than 9 months of monthly, and 2 years less than 16. After the founding seats it is $12.99 a month, $99 a year or $169 for 2 years. Cancel in one click in Billing.