How to Use Priority Inbox in Gmail: A Very Cool New Feature!
Today you might have noticed a new link in the top righthand corner of your Gmail inbox: “New! Priority Inbox”. 
Google announced Priority Inbox yesterday, and here is why you should use it:
- Priority inbox lists important messages at the top of your inbox, so you see them right away and they will stand out to you first.
- Priority inbox in Gmail is a “smart” feature, as you use it it will learn which messages (or type of messages) are important to you based on how you interact with your inbox. As it learns, it will filter out important messages better and better.
How does Gmail’s Priority Inbox work?
When messages come in to your Gmail inbox, Gmail might automatically flag some of them as important. It does so based on who you email the most, who you reply to right away, etc. For example, if you receive many messages from Suzie, and you email Suzie back right away, then Gmail will think her messages are important.
How you can start using Gmail Priority inbox
- Once you see the Priority Inbox link at the top of your screen, click on it.
- A small window will open and you can click on “try it now”:
- Now Gmail will open a window with some suggestions of messages that are important, and some that are less important:
- If Gmail did not hit it right on, you can mark some messages as important and not important with the
or 
buttons. - If Gmail hit it right on with what messages matter most to you, you can click “That looks right. Go to Priority Inbox!”
How you can help make Priority Inbox Smarter
Once you set up priority inbox, you can help it get smarter about what messages are important to you by clicking the or buttons at the top of the inbox to mark a message as important or not important.
Gmail is rolling out this new feature to all users over the coming week, so if you didn’t see the “New Priority Inbox” link yet on your inbox, keep an eye out for it and give it a try once you do! I’d love to see what you think in the comments!
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I use filters and labels a lot to categorize my mail by topic and by which address it was sent to. Anything that lands in my actual inbox by definition is important. Multiple Inboxes does for me what this new feature does.
I agree with you to some degree; I was using multiple inboxes as well, but I decided to give this a try anyways while I was writing the article. It turns out that it gives me a different type of experience than multiple inboxes, and I actually like it better. The layout is more efficient and compact, and it ‘learns’ quite well what would be important to me, even when I don’t receive it from someone I email regularly.