Gmail and GitHub - Filters

gmail-github-filters.md

Gmail and GitHub

How to filter emails from GitHub in Gmail and flag them with labels.

The labels in this document are just examples.

Pull Request

Filter	Label
from:(notifications@github.com) subject:"PR \#"	gh-pull-request

Note: special characters like ( or # are ignored and the escape \ doesn't work.

GitHub Actions

Filter	Label
from:(ci_activity@github.com)	gha

Discussion

Filter	Label
from:(notifications@github.com) subject:"\(Discussion \#)	gh-discussion

Releases

Filter	Label
from:(notifications@github.com) "Visit the release page to download them."	gh-relases

Assignments

Filter	Label
from:(notifications@github.com) cc:(assign@noreply.github.com)	gh-assignments

Mentions

Filter	Label
from:(notifications@github.com) cc:(mention@noreply.github.com)	gh-mentions

Review Requested

Filter	Label
from:(notifications@github.com) cc:(review_requested@noreply.github.com) "requested your review on"	gh-review-requested

GitHub emails

• subscribed: The notification arrived because you’re watching the repository.
• manual: The notification arrived because you’ve specifically decided to subscribe to the thread (via an Issue or Pull Request).
• author: The notification arrived because you’ve created the thread.
• comment: The notification arrived because you’ve commented on the thread.
• mention: The notification arrived because you were specifically @mentioned in the content.
• team_mention: The notification arrived because you were on a team that was mentioned (like @org/team).
• state_change: The notification arrived because you changed the thread state (like closing an Issue or merging a Pull Request).
• assign: The notification arrived because you were assigned to the Issue.
• review_requested: The notification arrived because your review is required.
• ci_activity: The notification arrived because CI activities (failure, success, ...)
• push: The notification arrived because of a push

example:

• mention@noreply.github.com
• assign@noreply.github.com

Approximate rules

WARNING: Those rules can produce false-positives.

Closed (~)

label: gh-closed

Filter:

from:(notifications@github.com) "Closed \#"

Note: special characters like ( or # are ignored and the escape \ doesn't work.

Merged (~)

label: gh-merged

Filter:

from:(notifications@github.com) "Merged \#"

Note: special characters like ( or # are ignored and the escape \ doesn't work.

Issue (~)

label: gh-issue

since 2021-10-11

Filter:

from:(notifications@github.com) subject:("Issue \#" -"PR \#")

Note: special characters like ( or # are ignored and the escape \ doesn't work.

References

• http://radek.io/2015/06/07/5-useful-gmail-filters-for-github-users/
• http://lyzidiamond.com/posts/github-notifications-google-script
• http://126kr.com/article/8t3endsbz2q
• https://developer.github.com/v3/activity/notifications/#notification-reasons
• https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7190?hl=en
• https://maximevaillancourt.com/blog/github-email-notifications-gmail-filters
• https://github.blog/changelog/2021-10-11-improved-notification-email-titles-for-issues-and-prs/

Awesome! This should make github notifications much easier to deal with in my email.

Also, keep in mind you can keep multiple Emails in Github and assign different emails to receive notifications based on a Github Organization. Useful if you like to alias multiple emails to handle different categories of mail

Anyone know if there is a good way to filter for releases only?

Note that it's possible to get "false positives" on the Merged search above...

Using from:(notifications@github.com) "merged AROUND 1 into" gives better results :)

Perhaps utilizing regex instead of hardcoding numbers? Example: from:(notifications@github.com) AND {"Patch Links" "approved this pull request." "requested changes on this pull request." "commented on this pull request." "pushed /d+ commit."}

You can't use regex in gmail filters, but you can use the AROUND operator. This works for me:

{"pushed AROUND 1 commit" "pushed AROUND 1 commits"}

To filter out GitHub Code Owners review requests (as part of a group/team) but still find review requests in which my GitHub username is explicitly added, I used this search expression:
from:(notifications@github.com) cc:(review_requested@noreply.github.com) "requested your review on"

It is almost identical to the search expression found in the original post, but it removes the OR braces around the last two search parameters. Hope that someone finds this useful!

With latest changes in GitHub email notifications, filters for issue and pr can be improved: https://github.blog/changelog/2021-10-11-improved-notification-email-titles-for-issues-and-prs/

ci_activity@noreply.github.com is missing from the list.

What kind of rules does people have for GH Actions?

What kind of rules does people have for GH Actions?

https://gist.github.com/ldez/bd6e6401ad0855e6c0de6da19a8c50b5#github-actions

You can add push@noreply.github.com to the list.

Very useful!

Very handy! Cheers :)