Filtering standup mail at Pivotal

One of the great traditions at Pivotal is daily standup, which is not only filled with business things but also contains some nice updates on local events, new people and general interesting things.  In the good spirit that we should be aware and know about the other Pivotal Labs around the world, standup notes from all labs are sent to all pivots.

To declutter my otherwise pretty empty inbox I decided to filter these other standup messages in a 'standupOther' label, so I can read them when I have the time.  This is not as simple as it should be in Gmail:  There are many labs and they number is constantly increasing, so the right solution is to filter my local standup to one folder and then all others to another.  However, Gmail filters are not cool with NOT and they are also not great a keeping a dependency within filters.

The solution is to first assign the label to the local standup emails, then filter on standup messages that have not been labeled in a second rule (Gmail will warn you that this may not work, but it will). A third rule is necessary to filter out the announcement that I am going to run standup next week.  

You have to enter these filters exactly in this order:  New filters go to the bottom of the stack. Although Google does not guarantee the order of the filter application, it has been top to bottom for the last few years.  If you have to edit one of these filter later, the order will be upset.  Simply edit the other filters too (adding requirements on the things you know will be there, like 'Interestings', as gmail is smart about detecting changes).