How to Filter Notification Messages in Gmail

All of these steps happen within the Gmail window. These instructions assume you are accessing Gmail from a web browser on a desktop computer.

Create a label first. This happens in the sidebar along the left side of the Gmail window.

Depending on which computer you have…

  • There may be a plus sign beside the Labels caption at the top of the list. Click the plus sign.

  • There may not be a heading caption, but you will find a “+Create New Label” link at the bottom of the list. Click that instead.

(If this is your first label, you won’t have a list.)

Now take a look at the notification messages in your inbox. Copy the first words from the subject line of one of the messages. Don’t copy any square brackets or individual application numbers.

Next click the gear icon at the top right of the whole Gmail page. In the panel that appears, click "See All Settings."

There are links across the top of the next panel that function as tabs. Click "Filters and Blocked Addresses."

Click "Create a New Filter" at the bottom of the filter list (or just at the bottom of the panel, if you don’t have a list of filters yet.)

In the filter settings, set the From to "no-reply@wufoo.com" and paste the subject line (text from one of the message subjects that you copied earlier) into the Subject field.

Click "Create the Filter." You should see the list in the background shift to show only messages of the type you are filtering.

In the panel in the foreground, check three things:

  1. “Skip the Inbox (Archive it)”

  2. “Apply the label: ________,” in which you should choose the label you just made

  3. “Also apply filter to matching conversations.”

Then click the blue “Create filter” button.

Now all of the matching messages should have been removed from your inbox but are viewable when you click the Label’s name at the left.

You may want to repeat this process so that the notifications and the receipts are both filtered.