# Auto Label Gmail by What the Email Says: Zentor reads each new email and applies the right Gmail label, Client, Invoice, Needs reply or your own, based on the content instead of a fixed filter rule.

Source: https://zentor.ai/use-cases/auto-label-gmail

Auto label Gmail by content: Zentor reads new emails every hour and applies your labels, so your inbox sorts itself without writing filter rules.

## Prompt

```text
Every hour, read my new Gmail emails and label each one by what it is about: Client, Invoice, Newsletter, Personal or Needs reply. Use the email content, not just the sender. Don't archive or delete anything.
```

Variations:

- **Client projects**: Label every new email with the client it belongs to (Acme, Northline, Brightpath) even when it comes from a new person at that company or only mentions the project name. Create the labels if they don't exist.
- **Clean up old mail**: Go through the last 90 days of my inbox and apply labels: Receipts, Travel, Newsletters, School, Work. Show me how many emails went into each before you apply anything.
- **Needs a reply**: Every morning, find emails from the last day that ask me a direct question or wait on a decision, and label them Needs reply. Leave everything else alone.

## How it works

1. **List your labels in plain English**: Say what each label means, such as Invoice = anything asking me to pay. Zentor uses your existing Gmail labels or creates new ones.
2. **Zentor reads each email and picks a label**: It looks at the subject, body and thread, so a new contact at a client still lands under that client.
3. **It keeps sorting every hour**: New mail gets labeled on a schedule, and you get a short log of what went where so you can correct it.

## What you can label automatically

- Client and project mail: Grouped by who it is for.
- Invoices and bills: Anything asking you to pay.
- Needs reply: Direct questions and decisions.
- Newsletters: Reading, not action.
- Receipts: Orders, refunds, subscriptions.
- School or family: Teachers, clubs, schedules.

## Comparison

| Feature | Gmail filters | Rule-based add-ons | Zentor |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it decides | Exact words in from, to, subject | Rules you configure | Reads the email and picks the label that fits |
| New senders | Missed until you add a rule | Missed until you add a rule | Labeled by content |
| Old mail | Apply filter to matching conversations | Varies | Backfill any date range on request |
| Changing a label | Edit filter syntax | Edit rules | Describe it again in plain English |

## FAQ

### How do I auto label emails in Gmail?

Gmail can label automatically with filters, but only by matching words in the sender, recipient or subject. To label by what the email is about, connect Gmail to Zentor, describe your labels in plain English and ask it to run every hour.

### Will it archive, delete or send anything?

No. By default it only adds labels. If you want it to archive newsletters or star urgent mail, you have to ask for that explicitly.

### Can it use the labels I already have?

Yes. Zentor reads your existing Gmail labels and uses them. If you name a label that does not exist, it creates it.

### Can it label my old emails too?

Yes. Ask for a backfill over a date range, for example the last 90 days. It can show you the counts per label before applying anything.

### What if it picks the wrong label?

Tell it in the chat, for example: emails from Brightpath's billing team are Invoice, not Client. It updates the instruction for the next runs.

### How is this different from Gmail filters?

Filters are exact rules on fixed fields. Zentor reads the content, so it handles new senders, forwarded threads and vague subjects that filters miss.