People like pills: Newsletters, Receipts, Shipping, Travel. Those are types. InboxSift tries not to let type dictate importance. A flight cancellation can be Act and still be travel.
Use categories to browse, not to hide Act
When you want to unsubscribe, open Newsletters. When you need a receipt, open Receipts. When you need to do something, start from Briefing, not from a type filter.
Unknown is allowed
If type is not obvious, InboxSift should leave it unknown rather than guess “newsletter” because there is a List-Unsubscribe header on a human troop email.
Paired with contacts
A sender you marked Always Noise will not clog Briefing even if they sometimes look like school/work. Categories still help when you go looking.
Frequently asked questions
- Are categories Gmail labels?
- They are InboxSift’s view of type, not a replacement for your Gmail label tree.
Sources & further reading
Published 2026-09-04. See also our full article library.