Did you know that over 1.5 billion people use Gmail worldwide?
If you want to thrive in this fast-paced world, you must know how Gmail works like the back of your hand. But without a lot of technical experience, you won't know some of the more obscure but useful features.
Don't feel discouraged yet.
With this guide, you'll learn about Gmail and some of its features. One of these is how to mark email as important. Read on and find out more:
Configure Gmail to Use Stars
With a busy inbox, you must know how to set importance in Gmail. This is where the Gmail Stars feature shines. It's the equivalent of the Flags feature of the Microsoft Outlook, and it works in almost the same way.
The default settings for Gmail Stars is a yellow star. This icon appears to the left of the sender's name. But like Flags, Gmail Stars enables you to mark messages as highly-important, to follow-up and delegated.
That's why you must configure Gmail Stars to use various icons. That way, you can assign various meanings to organize your inbox.
1. Go to Your Settings
On your Gmail interface, select the gear button and pick the Settings option. Once you're there, go to the General tab and scroll down until you reach the Stars section. Here, you'll see any configured Stars under the "In use" column.
2. Configure New Stars
The good news is that assigning stars for a specific purpose is easy. Drag the Stars from the "Not in use" section to the "In use" column. With this, you can use these Stars on your Gmail inbox.
3. Save Your Changes
After dragging all your desired Stars, go to the bottom of your screens. Press the Save Changes button to make these permanent. You're done!
A good practice is to use a few Stars when starting up. This keeps things simple and less confusing for you. Add them as needed, but don't overdo it.
Add Stars When Viewing Inbox Emails
After configuring the Stars you'll use, it's time to assign them to your emails. To do this, go to the Star Column and toggle the star. Once you click a star, you'll cycle through every Star type you configured before.
If you want an email to get a Star, open your email from your inbox. Here, you'll see a star icon in the top-right of your email. It's usually next to the date of the email.
When you click it, you'll cycle through all the Star types you configured before. Pick the appropriate Star to mark its significance to you. For example, you can select the red exclamation icon for emails that require your urgent attention.
Add Stars While Composing an Email
Are you looking to mark the email you're making as important? If so, Gmail gives you the option to add a Star while you're composing it. To start, look at the lower-right side of the window and click the More Options icon.
After that, pick the Label option and click on Add Star. With that, your sent message now contains a Star. This is a useful feature if you want to reference the mail later on.
Find Starred Emails
Adding a Star to your emails to make them significant is useless without means of finding them. That's why Gmail offers an easy way of finding your starred messages. To do this, click the Starred label located on the left side of the Gmail interface.
Your inbox will change to display only the emails marked with a Star. It also shows the appropriate icon for each type. That way, you'll know why the email is important.
An alternative method is to type the phrase "is:starred" in the Search box. You'll see this on top of the interface beside the Gmail logo. This is an important feature since only 6% of employees can handle over 50 emails each day.
With this method, you need not sift through your inbox to display your important emails.
Find Emails with a Specific Star Type
It's easy to find specific Star type in Gmail since all you need is to search using the Star's predefined name. To find this out, go to the Settings and General tab. Hover your mouse over the Star icon to display its name as a pop-up.
For example, if you hover your mouse over the icon with the red exclamation, it will display as "red-bang." Now, to search for specific Stars, enter its name on the search bar. Using the same example, enter the phrase "has:red-bang" to make Gmail display messages marked with this Star type.
Keep Starred Messages Out of the Primary Tab
Your Primary tab contains emails significant to you. But, if you have messages from other tabs, it will appear in your Primary section if it has a Star mark. The good news is that you can toggle this feature without doing a lot.
Turn this feature off by clicking the + icon. You see this on the right of your current tabs. If you haven't added anything, it's usually beside the Promotions tab.
On the ensuing dialog box, you'll see several options on which tabs to enable. If you don't want your starred message to appear in the Primary tab, look for the Starred Messages section. Uncheck the option that says "Include starred in Primary."
When you finish, click the blue save button to finalize your changes.
Do you want a more specific place for your emails? If so, check out this article on how to make a new folder in Gmail. That way, you add an extra layer of organization for your messages and access them faster.
Learn How to Mark Email as Important Today!
Gmail Stars is a great feature if you want to learn how to mark email as important. This email service has other features that let you assign significance to your messages. But so far, Stars is the most efficient and simplest out of them.
Is this guide on how to make an email important in Gmail helpful? If so, read our other posts today!
