gmail-filter

Filters unknown contacts from hitting inbox and goes direct to a label unknown_contact_processed. After a few weeks of running the script and adding contacts I actually want email from, unknown_contact_processed has become almost entirely spam which makes it very easy to clean out.

How it works

• Every new email has unknown_contact_queue label for up to 1 minute or until the next time the script runs if you configure trigger to run less often.
• If the sender of the email is a contact, unknown_contact_queue is removed.
• If the sender of the email is NOT a contact unknown_contact_queue is removed and unknown_contact_processed is added.
• If there is more than one message in a thread, it will be skipped. The goal here is to limit false positives but as you start running, you'll see some spam is missed for the first few weeks because people are continuously emailing you.

Installation

1. Create two labels in gmail of unknown_contact_queue and unknown_contact_processed
2. Create a filter that "doesn't have" a random set of characters like hg8d9ahg78dg6f382h7ihkg and have it apply the label unknown_contact_queue. This is the label our script will search and run its rules on so it must apply to every new message however you decide to build a filter.
3. Go to https://script.google.com/home and create a new project.
4. Click "Services" and add Peopleapi and leave at v1 with identifier of People
5. Copy and paste the contents of Code.gs in this repo into the Google Apps Script editor under file name Code.gs
6. Click the Stopwatch on the left for "Triggers" and click "+ Add Trigger"
7. Select triggerScriptForEmail as the function to run. Time-driven as the event source, Minutes Timer and Every minute. Set the failure notification settings as you please, I prefer to Notify me immediately.

Day to day usage

To NEVER have a new email go into the unknown_contact_processed label, just add the email as a contact. The easiest way to do this in gmail is to click the "User" icon in the right sidebar while you have the email open. The contacts sidebar slides open. Click the email you want to add as a contact (or check if they are a conact). If they are not a contact, you'll see a little icon in the top right with a "+" to add them as a contact. Once you do this, they'll never go into the unknown_contact_processed label again and always hit your inbox.

OR

add domains to the whitelist in Code.gs.