I am a sucker for a bargain, so I signed up for a multitude of deal-of-the-day websites that email me on a daily basis with some really sweet deals. However, I don't always have the time (or money) to spend perusing through these deals, and I've got about a month's worth of them clogging up my Gmail at the moment.

Since I don't exactly want to rid of the emails entirely--there are times when I want to splurge and take my friends out for some gourmet food at half price--I'm going to create filters that'll still allow me to get the emails, but keep my inbox clear for those important messages.

1. Find and Extract the Offenders

You'll need to begin by extracting the email address of every service you'd like filtered and pasting them into an empty TextEdit document. To do this, open up any message from the addresses in question, select "Show Details" in the upper right-hand corner, and copy down the email address of the offender (for example: groupon.com). For added organization, you can group each of the emails by categories.

In this instance, I'm going to create separate filters for any Google Voice, deal-of-the-day and newsletter emails that I subscribe to.

2. Assign a Label

Before creating Filters, you'll need to make Labels. Go to Settings in the upper right-hand corner of your Gmail page, select Labels, and enter in a name to create a new label for your Gmail filters.

3. Create a Filter

Next up, you'll want to create Filters so that they send certain messages to the Labels you've assigned. In the same Settings menu, select Filters and click on "Create a new filter." You'll be guided through a set up that will require you to input certain search criteria to maintain the filters. In the "From" box, paste the email address of the offender and click "Test Search" to verify that you have the correct email address; a list of existing e-mails will show up below if it's correct. Click "Next Step" once you've validated this.



Note: if the email address you're putting isn't finding anything in your oh-so-cluttered inbox, try using only the domain name instead.

4. Assign Actions

The next screen in the set up process will ask you to select the action that you'd like Gmail to take on the messages that you want filtered. To avoid an inbox filled with unread messages, select both "Skip the Inbox" and "Mark as read" , and then "Apply the label" to select the appropriate folder. Before you hit "Create Filter", select "Also apply filter to XX conversations below" right next to it to move the messages you "tested" earlier into the appropriate Label folder. This will take them out of your Inbox, at least, making it easier for you to clean it out.

So, notice any breathing room in your inbox? That's because you've moved all of those emails into a place of their own. And now, you only have to deal with them when you want to.