How-to

The Gmail filter that auto-archives newsletters, in three recipes

One filter keeps newsletters out of your inbox for good: match them, skip the inbox, apply a label. The catch is the matching. Match too broadly and you archive a real person; match too narrowly and half the newsletters still land in the inbox. These are the three recipes that work, the -from: exceptions that stop the false positives, and how to run the filter over mail you already have.

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By the Momo AI team. 6 min read. Published 16 October 2026.

What is the Gmail filter to auto archive newsletters?

Open the search options in Gmail, put unsubscribe in Has the words, click Create filter, choose the Skip the Inbox action and apply a label called Newsletters, then create it. From then on, mail containing the word unsubscribe lands in the label, not the inbox. Two variants are more precise: category:promotions as the criterion, or an explicit sender list with from:(a OR b). Add -from: exceptions for real people the filter catches. This page is the recipe; how to clean up newsletters in Gmail covers unsubscribing and the wider clean-up.

Recipe 1: match the unsubscribe keyword

This is the broadest recipe. Bulk senders include an unsubscribe link, so it catches nearly every newsletter, including ones Gmail has not sorted into Promotions. It also catches anything else with the word in it, which is why the exceptions below matter. The steps follow Google's help page, which also covers editing and deleting filters later under Settings, Filters and Blocked Addresses.

  1. 1Open Gmail on a computer and click the search options control at the right of the search box.
  2. 2In Has the words, enter unsubscribe.
  3. 3Click Search first. This shows exactly which mail the filter would catch, so scan the list for real people before you go on.
  4. 4Reopen the search options and click Create filter at the bottom.
  5. 5Choose Skip the Inbox and the label action, then pick or create a label called Newsletters.
  6. 6Click Create filter.

Recipe 2: match Gmail's own Promotions category

This leans on Gmail's classifier instead of a keyword. It is cleaner, because Gmail already separates marketing mail, and it rarely catches a person. It is also narrower: newsletters Gmail files under Updates or Forums are not matched. You can combine categories in one criterion, for example category:promotions OR category:forums, and Google's search operators page lists the other category: values. If you do not use inbox categories at all, this recipe does nothing; use recipe 1 or 3.

  1. 1Open the search options.
  2. 2In Has the words, enter category:promotions.
  3. 3Click Search to preview, then Create filter.
  4. 4Choose Skip the Inbox and apply the Newsletters label.
  5. 5Click Create filter.

Recipe 3: match a list of senders

The most precise recipe and the most maintenance. Nothing gets caught by accident, but every new newsletter has to be added by editing the filter. The OR goes between the addresses; Google's operators page also shows the brace form, {from:a from:b}, which means the same thing.

  1. 1Open the Newsletters label, or search unsubscribe, and note the sender addresses you want filtered.
  2. 2Open the search options and in From, enter the addresses joined with OR, for example news@example.com OR digest@example.org OR hello@example.net.
  3. 3Click Search to preview, then Create filter.
  4. 4Choose Skip the Inbox and apply the Newsletters label.
  5. 5Click Create filter.

Add -from: exceptions for people the filter catches

Any of the three recipes can be narrowed with a negative. In Has the words, write the criterion and then the exclusions, for example unsubscribe -from:(priya@example.com OR boss@example.com). Everything matching unsubscribe is filtered except mail from those two people. Add every colleague and client you hear from regularly to the list. Google notes that with negative operators, conversations with excluded criteria may still appear in search results, so check the Newsletters label for a week after creating the filter and adjust.

Apply the filter to mail you already have

A new filter acts on mail that arrives after you create it. To move the existing backlog under the label, run the same criterion as a search, for example unsubscribe -is:starred, tick the select-all box, choose to select every conversation that matches, then apply the Newsletters label and archive. Gmail also offers, on the final step of creating a filter, to apply it to the conversations that already match; the help page does not document that checkbox, so if you do not see it, the search route above does the same job. How to bulk archive Gmail safely covers what to exclude before you select all.

The trap: what goes wrong with newsletter filters

Every one of these has caught someone. Check them before you trust the filter.

  • Sales reps, recruiters and some HR tools put "unsubscribe" in their footers. Recipe 1 will archive them. Review the label daily for the first week and add each one as a -from: exception.
  • Replies are filtered too if they match. Google's help page says a reply to a filtered message is filtered only if it meets the same criteria, which with unsubscribe usually means a quoted footer in the reply. Keep an eye on threads you actually answered.
  • Skip the Inbox is an archive, not a delete. The mail is in All Mail and under the label. If the label vanishes from your left panel, it is probably hidden under Settings, Labels, not gone.
  • Filters are a web job. Google's help page gives the create, edit and delete steps on a computer only, so plan to set them up in a browser.
  • Filtering is not unsubscribing. A filtered newsletter still counts against storage and still arrives. For senders you never read, use Gmail's Unsubscribe link or Manage subscriptions under More in the left menu, which Google's help page describes; the clean-up guide linked above walks through it.

Review the label on purpose

A newsletter label only works if you open it deliberately. Pick a slot, open Newsletters, read what you want, select all and archive the rest. Anything you skip three times in a row is a candidate for unsubscribing rather than filtering. If the label becomes a second inbox you dread, the filter is too broad; move to recipe 2 or 3.

The AI shortcut

Momo AI's inbox triage does the sorting without a filter to maintain. It reads the last 7 days of your Gmail and separates newsletters, notifications and cold pitches from mail that needs you, then shows one card with the counts. One tap archives the noise, undo puts it back for 7 days, and nothing is deleted. Each morning the brief tells you what it found, so you see the newsletter count without opening a label. Your filters keep running underneath either way.

Control

Nothing leaves without you

Every email and every cancellation shows up as a card first. Edit it, send it, or discard it. Sends wait 10 seconds so you can undo. Everything Momo AI reads, drafts and sends is on the Activity page.

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Questions

How do I make Gmail automatically archive newsletters?

Create a filter with `unsubscribe` or `category:promotions` in `Has the words`, choose `Skip the Inbox` and apply a `Newsletters` label. New matching mail skips the inbox and lands under the label.

How do I exclude a sender from a Gmail filter?

Add a negative to the criterion, for example `unsubscribe -from:(name@example.com)`. For a whole company, `-from:example.com` excludes every address at that domain.

Does a Gmail filter apply to old emails?

By default it acts on new mail. To move existing mail, run the same criterion as a search, select all matching conversations, then label and archive them.

Can I create Gmail filters on my phone?

Google's help page documents creating, editing and deleting filters on a computer, under `Settings`, `Filters and Blocked Addresses`. Set them up in a browser.

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