Gmail workaround: Two clunky ways to view unlabelled messages

Suppose you have filters automatically labelling your incoming mailing-list mail with the name of the list, e.g. Goldfish, Politics, Gizmos, etc. You want to be able to see all the messages that are unlabled, but Gmail does not offer a "View unlabeled" user interface, and it might be a while until Gmail does, because "inbox" is simply a lable and when users invoke "Select unlabeled" they probably do not expect the results to exclude the inbox.

Here are two alternatives:

• The direct approach: start a search with -label:Goldfish and look at your results. If you see "Gizmos" there, extend your search with -label:Gizmos and search again. Repeat until there are no more labeled messages amongst your search results, then copy the search string and paste it somewhere handy. Looking for someplace handy? Add a contact named "Workarounds" and paste it into that contact's Notes section.


• For each filter you make that adds a label, make a copy that adds the label "autolabeled." Now Gmail will take an incoming message about goldfish and apply both Goldfish and autolabeled. Then you can search for -label:autolabled and get all the escapees.