[Aidan]

Gmail's Archive function is (or at least was, 8 years ago) its best feature! If you're not using it, you're Doing It Wrong.

If you think of your inbox as a to-do list (where the most basic task is "read this"), then the most common pattern ITDBG (In The Days Before Gmail) for managing your to-do was using read/unread as your done/todo flags.

This was annoying; when reading an email that can't be actioned right away you'd have to go back and mark it as unread. Trivial, but it always felt like there was a better way.

When Gmail launched with it's Archive feature, it was definitely an "ah-hah!" moment. Now the read/unread flags had no hidden meaning, and your to-do list was simply whatever your saw in your inbox. When you action an email, away to the archive it goes.

Reaching inbox-zero is a gloriously satisfying moment. Why yes ... I WILL read some google news.

[Travis]

Disagree. And if you're telling someone they're doing something wrong, you may be overemphasizing your point.

I use priority inbox to filter out the messages that I ignore 99% of the time. For items I need to act on later, I use stars. With P.I., I can hide or show my Priority emails, my starred emails, and everything else. So things that are new can get my attention, or I can focus on finishing something up, etc.

I don't disagree that your system works effectively for you, but I think it's a silly statement to tell someone else they're doing it wrong (especially silly to capitalize the phrase Doing It Wrong.)

[dredmorbius]

The problem I have: I've got too much mail coming in to use manual "archive" effectively.

I filter mail aggressively. My inbox currently sits just below 2000 messages. "All" folder has nearly 25,000 messages. Given a 1-week average, I seem to get about 200 emails/day.

Most of those are machine-generated notifications or various list / subscribed mails. Subscriptions are generally ingnorable, though I'll be interested in stuff that pertains to my own posts, and occasionally search archives for issues related to things I've encountered (dual curse of GMail: it makes handling mail a bit awkward, but its search utilities are pretty good).

Those filter rules are also a bit funky. Where procmail gives great power (and requires great responsibility), GMail's filter syntax is more limited, doesn't allow running arbitrary commands (duh), and leaves me a bit confused on the order of application of filters (though it seems better than MS Outlook, which was completely broken in this regard).

My email is not just a to-do list.

It is in part a to-do list.

It's a reminder pile.

It's a knowledgebase.

It's a news stream.

It's a "oh, X happened, let's see if there's any other notice of it elsewhere in mail".

Not a one-size-fits-all tool.

My preferred interface