ShaneLabs

Gmail filter for all incoming mail

I know it sounds weird to have a filter for ALL incoming mail, as it’s not really filtering anything. But sometimes there are actions you want Gmail to take on all of your email. This could include not sending anything to the spam folder, forwarding the email to a different address, or marking it with a label.

There is not ‘catch all’ setting, so you have to use a simple trick. When setting your filter search options, enter a nonsense value in the “Doesn’t have” field. Example: ‘ash87slkjhsdkjfsd8fsdf99889’. No real email coming in should ever have that value in the mail, so that will essentially match all your new mail.

Seems kinda silly, but it works! Here’s a screenshot:

gmail

Hope that helps!

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Comments

35 responses to “Gmail filter for all incoming mail”

  1. Simba Avatar
    Simba

    Nice! This helped.

    Reply
  2. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    Ahah very good idea, thanks!!

    Reply
  3. Jerry Avatar
    Jerry

    This perfect solution helped so badly. Thanks a million bro!

    Reply
  4. Bruce Avatar
    Bruce

    Brilliant!

    Reply
  5. Anthony Avatar
    Anthony

    Clever 🙂 I’m kinda kicking myself for not seeing that myself. Thanks!

    Reply
  6. Arik Avatar
    Arik

    You know that there is a built in option to do that, right?
    Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
    The first option is to choose the address you want to forward all you emails to.

    Reply
    1. Wolle Avatar
      Wolle

      this option is only valid if you are forwarding messages to ONE recipient. If you want to forward ALL messages to multiple recipients you need to configure filters

      Reply
  7. May Avatar
    May

    Nifty solution. Filters/rules are helpful for more than forwarding. E.g., Gmail messages that I accessed via Apple mail would often come through marked “Important” for reasons known only to gremlins. Thanks to your tip, they no longer do.

    Reply
  8. John Avatar
    John

    “You know that there is a built in option to do that, right?
    Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
    The first option is to choose the address you want to forward all you emails to.”

    The different between a filter/forward and forward is that filter/forward can forward to multiple email address.
    a forward can only send to one email address.

    Reply
  9. Gabriel W. Avatar
    Gabriel W.

    Wow, thanks, neat workaround! Exactly what I needed haha!

    Reply
  10. Ale Avatar
    Ale

    @Arik, that feature simply resends the email. If you want to “decorate” the email in some way, for example, add the tag “[EMAIL2]” to the subjectm then you have to use a filter.

    Reply
  11. naz Avatar
    naz

    @Arik unfortunately some mail does goes into the spam.

    Reply
  12. Guy Avatar
    Guy

    Of course, there is always the possibility that there is an email with that character sequence. Best way to do it is with the “Smaller Than” Filer, and set it to something like 7000 mb

    Reply
  13. Rocco Avatar
    Rocco

    Yes, forward works with one address at a time only though.

    Reply
  14. Ash Avatar
    Ash

    You can also do “larger than: 0 bytes”
    This will return even a blank email with no subject or body; and that way you don’t accidentally miss a message containing your random text

    Reply
  15. Abhijith Thulaseedharan Avatar
    Abhijith Thulaseedharan

    If your filter has “from:(-me)” then sent items will be excluded..

    Reply
  16. ARK Avatar
    ARK

    BRILLIANT suggestion! It works with all receiving settings (“To”, “Cc” and “Bcc”)… You’re a genius, thanks so much!

    Reply
    1. Shane Avatar
      Shane

      Glad to help!!

      Reply
  17. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    I searched for this answer and found it, thanks!

    Reply
  18. Marcelo Avatar
    Marcelo

    Thanks. very helpfull

    Reply
  19. lapsang Avatar
    lapsang

    Thanks, it makes sense!

    Reply
  20. devnullius Avatar
    devnullius

    Shere genius XD

    Reply
  21. Jacob Avatar
    Jacob

    I’m with some of the others who are kicking themselves for not being the brilliant one to think up this solution. Thanks so much for sharing, you saved my brain a lot of work today!

    Reply
  22. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    You can also put * to any of the fields.

    Reply
  23. Mike Regan Avatar
    Mike Regan

    great simple idea. You are the man, thank you for sharing that!

    Reply
  24. Russ Avatar
    Russ

    Brilliant!

    Reply
  25. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    4 years later, and still helping, thanks.

    Reply
  26. Shafi Khan Avatar
    Shafi Khan

    Thanks a million bro!!!! Love you for this!!

    Reply
  27. neil barstow Avatar
    neil barstow

    Thanks so much
    it is working

    Reply
  28. fabiomalf Avatar
    fabiomalf

    Still a greats solution!!! Thanks!

    Reply
  29. alex Avatar
    alex

    Oh thank you ! =)

    Reply
  30. Rafał Avatar
    Rafał

    Years has passed and no such function has ever been introduced to gmail. Shame. However, I’ve found a slightly more elegant solution. Set a filter for messages that contain:

    {cutelittlekitty -cutelittlekitty}

    The letter string is arbitrary of course. The point is, braces make gmail search for both the mails that do and do not contain the string – making every possible message a match. (Contrary to parentheses that would always give 0 results here).

    Reply
  31. Slava Avatar
    Slava

    One more solution: to set filter “From: (*)”

    Reply
  32. Kawena Avatar
    Kawena

    HELP!! I can’t get the filter to work after repeated attempts. I have a mailbox that is to be autoforwarded to several others hence the need for a filter. I setup the filter for anything matching the to address and I also did one for the example here. NOTHING WORKS!. There are no filters setup though I try again to set one up for one already done I get a message the a filter exists though not on the list of filters. HELP!!

    Reply
    1. Shane Labs Avatar
      Shane Labs

      Hmm…is there a chance that the filter would result in a loop? I’ve noticed gmail is smart enough to know when it’s forwarding too many times to the same accounts and tries to prevent an infinite loop.

      Reply

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