How to Tag and Categorize Saved Emails in Notion

Saving emails to Notion is step one. Step two is organizing them so you can actually find what you need later. Tags and categories are the key to making your email archive useful.

The Tagging System

Category (Select Property)

Use a single-select property for the primary category. Each email belongs to exactly one category:

• Work — Professional communications
• Personal — Non-work emails
• Finance — Receipts, invoices, banking
• Newsletter — Subscribed content
• Support — Customer inquiries
• Legal — Contracts, agreements

Tags (Multi-Select Property)

Use a multi-select property for more granular tagging. An email can have multiple tags:

• urgent — Needs immediate attention
• reference — Keep for future reference
• actionable — Contains a task or action item
• client-name — Tag by client or contact
• project-name — Tag by project

Status (Select Property)

Track the processing state of each email:

• New — Just arrived, unprocessed
• In Progress — Being worked on
• Waiting — Waiting for a response
• Done — Fully processed
• Archived — No longer active

Setting Up Properties in Notion

When creating your email database, include these properties:

Tagging Strategies

Tag When Saving

If you use the Gmail add-on, you can set properties before saving. This is the most efficient approach — the email arrives in Notion already tagged.

Tag During Triage

If you use auto-forwarding, emails arrive untagged. Schedule a daily or weekly triage session:

1. Open your "New" view (Status = New)
2. For each email, set Category, Tags, and Priority
3. Change Status to appropriate value
4. Move on

Auto-Categorization with Multiple Destinations

The most powerful approach: create different Quicktion destinations for different categories, using Gmail rules to route emails to each one. Each destination points to the same database but with different default property values.

Example:

• Receipts destination → Category auto-set to "Finance"
• Newsletter destination → Category auto-set to "Newsletter"
• Client destination → Category auto-set to "Work"

The category is set automatically based on which forwarding address received the email.

Building Useful Views

Inbox View

• Filter: Status = "New"
• Sort: Date (newest first)
• Purpose: Your daily triage queue

By Category View

• Group by: Category
• Sort: Date (newest first)
• Purpose: Browse emails by type

Tag Search View

• Filter: Tags contains [selected tag]
• Sort: Date (newest first)
• Purpose: Find all emails related to a specific topic

Action Items View

• Filter: Tags contains "actionable", Status != "Done"
• Sort: Priority, then Date
• Purpose: See what needs your attention

Client View

• Filter: Tags contains [client name]
• Sort: Date (newest first)
• Purpose: Full email history with a specific client

Tips

1. Keep categories broad — You should have 5-8 categories max. Tags handle the specifics.
2. Be consistent with tags — Decide on tag names upfront and stick to them. "client-acme" is better than sometimes using "acme" and sometimes "Acme Corp".
3. Don't over-tag — 2-4 tags per email is enough. More than that and the system becomes noisy.
4. Use filters liberally — Notion's filter system is powerful. Create as many views as you need.
5. Archive regularly — Move processed emails to "Archived" status to keep active views clean.

Get Started

Sign up for Quicktion and start saving emails to Notion. Then set up your tagging system and create views that match your workflow.