How Auto Labels work
Auto Labels reads each new email and sorts it into the right label for you — no rules to set up. Eight categories are built in, you can add your own, and you decide which ones stay in your inbox.
Most inbox organization asks you to write filters and rules, then keep fixing them. Auto Labels skips that. Chiefy reads each incoming email, works out what it is, and applies the matching category automatically. The eight built-in categories work in both Gmail and Outlook, and Chiefy learns from the content of the email itself rather than from rules you have to maintain.
The eight system categories
Auto Labels ships with eight built-in categories. Every one has a clear meaning, and Chiefy uses that meaning to decide where an email belongs:
- Action needed — someone is waiting for you to respond or take action.
- Awaiting reply — you’re waiting on a response to something you sent.
- Comment — a notification about a comment or activity on shared content.
- FYI — information shared with you, with nothing to do.
- Meeting update — calendar invites, changes, and meeting materials.
- Notification — automated alerts about events, status, or transactions.
- Promotions — newsletters, marketing, and promotional content.
- Resolved — a conversation that’s finished or settled.
These eight are fixed — you can’t rename or delete them — but you control how each one behaves (more on that below).
Where the labels live
In Gmail, each category appears as a nested label under a single parent label, so they stay grouped and out of the way. In Outlook, the same categories show up as categories (color tags) on your mail.
The parent label is named
[Chiefy]— for example,[Chiefy]/Action needed. The categories all nest under it.
How Chiefy decides
Each category has a matching guide that describes exactly what belongs in it — for example, Action needed means someone is directly waiting for you to respond, while Awaiting reply means the wait is the other way around. Chiefy reads the email against these guides and picks the one that fits.
A thread carries one system category at a time — never two at once. Chiefy re-evaluates the thread as it changes — for instance, once you reply and the ball is in the other person’s court, it can move from Action needed to Awaiting reply. When that happens, the previous system label is removed and only the current one is applied, so the label always reflects the latest state of the conversation rather than piling up.
Keep in inbox or auto-archive
For each category, you choose whether matching emails stay in your inbox or get auto-archived — filed under their label but moved out of the main view. Most categories stay in your inbox by default. Promotions is the exception: it’s auto-archived out of the box, so marketing and newsletters are filed away without cluttering your inbox. You can change any of these at any time.
Auto-archiving (moving an email out of the inbox) currently applies in Gmail. In Outlook, Chiefy tags each email with its category so you can sort and filter, but emails stay where they are.
Categorization
EnabledTurn off to stop automatic sorting. Your category preferences will stay here until you turn it back on.
Every email is automatically sorted into categories. Choose which ones you want to see in your inbox—the rest will be organized into labels without cluttering your view.
Someone is waiting for you to respond or take action
You're waiting for a response to your question or request
Notifications about comments and activity on shared content
Information shared with you - no response needed
Calendar invites, updates, and meeting materials
Automated alerts about events, status, or transactions
Newsletters, marketing emails, and promotional content
Completed conversations and resolved matters
Turning Auto Labels on and off
Auto Labels is part of Pro, and it’s controlled by a master toggle plus per-category settings. The master toggle turns automatic labeling on or off for everything at once; the per-category settings let you fine-tune inbox versus auto-archive for each one.
If you turn the master toggle off, Chiefy stops applying labels automatically — but the eight categories stay visible in your settings, so nothing is lost and you can switch it back on whenever you like. To learn how, see Turning off Auto Labels.
If an email lands in the wrong category, see Fixing miscategorized emails.
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