Gmail filter not from address conversation

Question

I created a filter that matches all the automated messages sent from a service, marks them as read, archives them (skips the inbox), and adds an "Automated" label.

This works great most of the time, but sometimes a colleague or customer who receives a copy of one of these messages will "reply" to one of these messages, sending their comments in a message to me. I need these replies to be treated as important, unread messages that arrive in my inbox so I won't miss them!

I have tried adding a "not from these addresses" rule to my filter to try to get it to NOT match the filter when it's from one of these addresses (colleague/customer). But this doesn't seem to work because Gmail aggregates the customer's reply into the same "conversation" and the filter has ALREADY matched and been applied to that conversation (because the earlier message(s) in the conversation were automated messages that DID match all of its criteria).

What would be a good solution be? Other ideas I've thought of...

1. Add another filter that matches all mail sent from my customer and moves it back to the Inbox. I think this would work as long as this filter came after the other filter. The problem is, I don't see "Move to inbox" or "Mark as unread" listed as an option in the edit filter box. The only related option is "Apply the label:" but "Inbox" isn't listed as one of the label options. Am I missing something?
2. Ask my customer to always change the subject line when replying so that Gmail won't group it in the same conversation. (This is not an acceptable solution because it relies on them to change their habits, which I have no control over...)
3. Turn off Conversations for all my e-mail. (This is not an option, because most of the time having things grouped into conversations is helpful...)

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Answer 1

This answer assumes that all of the automated emails are sent from the same address.

I'm not sure how you've created your filter, but try filtering by the from: field only. If the automated sender's address is always something like [email protected] then set up your filter to filter on:

from: [email protected]

This will make sure all automated email will hit the filter. Then, when someone else replies to that address, the new sender's email will be different from the one listed in the filter, and allow it to hit the inbox as normal.

Answer 2

Without more information about your specific situation, here is a possible solution:

You have two requests:

1. Messages that are not to you, but are related to the listserve should be archived and labeled "automated" and also marked as read.
2. Messages that are between you and others that are related to the listserve should be marked as "important".

Assuming:

• The initial messages that you want to label as "automated" do not have your address in the "to:" field of the message. They do have the "to:" address as the mailing list's address, such as "[email protected]" but they get to you because the "deliver-to:" address is your address.
• Your colleague is not "replying" to the whole listserve, but that you are on the "to:" field of their message to you.
• Mailing list messages have a common text prefix (e.g. subject is "[xyz-list] Meeting coming up").

Then:

(1) Set up a filter to label new messages from a mailing list as "automated" using the "to:" field:

1. Identify one of the messages.
2. Find the "to:" field by hovering over the "to" in the message view.
3. Set up a filter that's based on this "to:" address, e.g. "to:[email protected]".
4. Set up the filter to A) skip the inbox and B) mark it as read and C) label the message as "automated".

Suppose you and a colleague receive a message from the mailing list. Yours gets labeled "automated" and archived as read. Good.

And now suppose a colleague who sees the message and wants to talk to you about it. They "forward" or "reply" the message to you (not to the mailing list address). Since the first filter only operates on messages that are "to:" the mailing list, you will have the colleague's message in your inbox, unread. The whole conversation will show up (sorry, but that's how conversation threads work), but that's a small price to pay.

(2) Now, how do you go about making those messages also "important"? Set up another filter. This one is going to detect the listserve using a different method:

1. Identify a common subject prefix used in the mailing list. (e.g. "[xyz-list]")
2. Set up a filter based on the subject or body to identify them. (Note that "list:xyz-list.mail.example.com" will not match to your colleague's message to you.)
3. Set the filter to mark as important.