How to use Inbox Categories in eM Client
eM Client offers an advanced inbox category system that automatically organises your incoming mail. This ensures that the most important messages remain in view, while lower-priority ones are sorted into separate tabs. Supported categories include: Personal, Promotions, Social, Updates and Forums. A message can also have No Category. These categories are synchronised with mail servers that support them (e.g. Google/Gmail), which is why their names and number cannot be modified.
You can organise these categories into tabs (e.g. Primary, Other) as you wish, or view them all together. This feature helps you prioritise messages, allowing you to focus on the most important ones first.
Default settings for all accounts can be adjusted by navigating to Menu -> Settings -> Mail -> Categories
Categories - General section
In the Categories settings section, you can enable or disable this feature, specify how tabs are displayed, and manage rules for automatic message assignment.
- Show categories - unchecking this option will hide category tabs in all sections of the application. If you want to use categories only in specific folders, you can change this setting individually for each account.
- Default categories - you can set different tab schemes for:
- Gmail and Google Workspace accounts
- Other accounts (non-Gmail)
- Global folders (e.g. "All Inboxes")
Available options for default categories:
- Primary, Promotions and Social - the classic layout known from Gmail
- Primary and Other - a simpler division into two main message streams
- Custom - allows you to precisely choose which tabs should be visible and which categories should make up the "Primary" and "Other" tabs
The General section also includes the Category tab shown by default option, which determines which tab will be displayed first when opening the inbox (e.g. Primary, All, etc.).
Categories - Display section
In this section, you can decide how eM Client should notify you about new messages in categories:
- Show number of recent messages - a counter of messages received since the folder was last opened
- Show number of unread messages - the total number of unread emails
- Message counters style
- Badge - a number on a coloured background
- Parenthesis - the number shown in brackets, without a background
- Dot - a subtle marker without a specific number
Categories - Custom Rules section
Here you can manage rules for assigning specific senders to selected categories. These rules are always assigned to a specific email account (use the account selector).
To add or remove addresses from a given category, click the Modify button. There, you can manually enter email addresses or domains that eM Client should automatically filter into the selected tab.
Automatic Categorisation
For Gmail accounts, categories are synchronised directly with the server. For other accounts, eM Client uses its own sorting algorithm.
If the default categorisation does not meet your expectations, you can repair it or manually change the category of a message. To try and repair automatic assignment, right-click on the Inbox folder > Properties > Repair > Categorise messages.
How to change the Category tabs view
You can change the default settings in Menu > Settings > Mail > Categories, but you can also modify the view directly in the main application window.
Right-click on the message list header, then select Category Tabs. There, you can customise the view for a specific account or completely hide the category bar for that inbox.
How to change the category of a selected message
The easiest way to change a category is to right-click on the message, select the Category option, and choose the correct item from the list.
You can also use the "drag and drop" method by moving the message onto the desired category tab. If you are using a combined view (e.g. Primary, Other or All), the application will ask you which category to assign the message to.
In both cases, a confirmation window will appear informing you about the category rules that can be created based on this manual change:
- Default - eM Client will create a rule assigning all future messages from this sender to the selected category
- Shift + click - the rule will be applied to both future and past messages from this contact
- Alt (Windows) / Control (macOS) + click - the category will be changed for this single message only, without creating any permanent rule
Note: Creating and editing rules for Google accounts is not available in the Free version.
