Organize Gmail with email snoozing, archiving, stars, and categories

There’s no shortage of ways to organize Gmail. Whether you want to temporarily remove messages, permanently store them away from your primary inbox, or assign special statuses to messages, this article shows you how to set up and use three more organizational methods.
We already described five simple ways to organize your Gmail inbox and provided detailed instructions on how to set up labels and filters.
In this final part of our Gmail organization series, we’ll look at how you can snooze and archive, take advantage of additional Gmail stars, and activate inbox categories.
How to snooze messages
Snoozing emails will temporarily remove them from your inbox so that your urgent emails aren’t listed along with lower priority messages you intend to address later. You can choose the day and time for snoozed emails to reappear in your inbox.
NOTE: If you want to see a list of your snoozed messages, simply click “Snoozed” from Gmail’s main menu on the left. From there, you have the option to unsnooze a message and have it return to your inbox immediately.
Snoozing within an individual message
- Open an individual message.
- Click the “More” (three-dots) menu located on the toolbar at the top of the screen.
- Select “Snooze”.
- Select one of the “Snooze until…” presets or “Pick date and time” to customize your own day and time (Figure 1).

Snoozing messages from your inbox
- From your inbox, select one or more emails.
- Click the “More” (three-dots) menu located on the toolbar at the top of the screen.
- Select “Snooze”.
- Select one of the “Snooze until…” presets or “Pick date and time” to customize your own day and time (Figure 2).

How to archive messages
Archiving email is a great way to remove messages you’re not quite ready to permanently delete from your inbox. It ensures an organized workspace while retaining quick and easy access to important messages.
NOTE: If you want to review your archived messages, simply click “All Mail” from Gmail’s main menu on the left.
Archiving email from a message or your inbox
- Similar to email snoozing, open an individual message OR select one or more emails from your inbox.
- Click the “Archive” button on the toolbar at the top of every message and your inbox (Figure 3).

Use stars for at-a-glance context
You might already be using the default yellow star to mark an email as important, but there are 11 other star symbols.
You can assign your own meaning to each of these stars and use them to provide additional context and priority to messages. Check out how I like to use stars in Part 1 of this series.
NOTE: If you’d like to see a list of your starred messages, simply click “Starred” from Gmail’s main menu on the left.
Setting up your Gmail stars
- In Gmail, click “Settings” (gear icon) on the upper-right corner.
- Click “See all settings”.
- Select “General”.
- Scroll down to the “Stars” section.
- From there, you can click and drag stars between the “Not in use” and “In use” lists (Figure 4).
- NOTE: When you click an email’s star symbol, each successive click will rotate through your stars in the order you list in “In use”.

Use categories to automatically organize your inbox
Gmail's inbox categories are designed to automatically organize incoming messages into predefined inbox tabs, improving email organization and reducing clutter.
See Part 1 of this series, for a full description of these categories.
Setting up your inbox categories
- In Gmail, click “Settings” (gear icon) on the upper-right corner.
- Click “See all settings”.
- Select “Inbox”.
- In the “Categories” section, check the boxes of the categories you’d like to include in your inbox (Figure 5).
- The categories you choose will appear as tabs in your inbox (Figure 6).
- NOTE: “Primary” is your default category and can’t be unselected.


Closing thoughts
Snoozing and archiving messages, applying stars, and turning on inbox categories are effective, low-effort ways to keep your inbox clean and uncluttered. But, as easy as these tools are to use, you have a part to play too—to keep messages from piling up despite these steps. The good news is that using these tools properly and regularly will become second nature, and you won’t even need to think about them in the future.