How to Move Emails from Promotions to Primary

What's the Difference Between Promotions and Primary?

Your Promotions tab is where any promotional emails will go. You won't get a notification for these emails, hence why messages can get lost and important messages go unnoticed.

The types of messages you'll find in this tab include shopping offers, deals, spam, and emails mistakenly identified as promotional.

The Promotions tab is one of the Gmail categories; you'll also find a Social tab under the categories. The Primary category contains messages from people you know and emails that don't appear in other tabs.

Throughout the rest of this article, you will learn how to move emails from Promotions to Primary and all the ways Clean Email can support your email organization further.

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How to Move an Email from Promotions to Primary

Fortunately, it's easy to manage messages within Gmail and move messages from one category to another, especially when you're waiting to hear back about a job or get a confirmation email.

1. Drag and Drop

One of the quickest and easiest ways to move emails from Promotions to Primary is to drag and drop the message.

1. Find the email within the Promotions tab.
2. Hover over the message and drag it to the Primary inbox.

This way you will teach and improve your Google Mail inbox. Any future emails from this sender should now always appear in the Primary inbox instead of Promotions.

Once these messages begin to appear in the Primary inbox, be sure to open them. Every time you open the message it helps Google understand what you want.

2. Add Emails to Contacts

Another easy way to avoid important emails ending up in the wrong tab is to add addresses to your contacts—it’s like you whitelist sender to go straight to your inbox. You can do this on both the web and mobile versions of Gmail.

1. Find an email within the Promotions tab and open it.
2. Hover over the sender’s name or profile picture.
3. Click the Add to contacts icon. It looks like a person with a + sign.

Now, any messages you receive from people in your contact list should automatically appear in your Primary folder.

3. Create a Filter

One of Gmail's great tools is the ability to create a filter. This enables you to automatically move emails wherever you want and trains Gmail to change delivery according to your preferences.

Here's how to move email from Promotions to Primary by creating a filter:

1. Find an email in the Promotions tab and open it.
2. Click the three dots at the top right and choose Filter messages like this.
3. Check the sender’s name and address are correct and click Create filter.
4. Check the Never send it to Spam box.
5. Check Categorize as, and choose Primary from the options given.
6. Click the Create filter button.

Every message from this sender will now always land in your Primary mailbox.

You can create filters for anything and it's such a great way to organize Gmail!

Later, you can change filter settings in the settings menu. Go to Settings, open the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab, find the filter you want to change, and click Edit.

4. Disable Promotions

By disabling the Promotions tab, all messages will be sent to Primary. In this case, you will want to set up filters anyway to avoid your main inbox becoming cluttered.

1. Click the Settings icon next to your profile picture.
2. Now click See all settings.
3. Find the Inbox section.
4. Uncheck the Promotions box.
5. Scroll and click Save.

You can go back into Settings and make any changes if you find this system doesn’t work.

5. Use the “Not Promotions” Button

Just like the mark as spam, or not spam button, there's also a Not promotions button.

By using this you will help Google understand which emails should land in which tab.

1. Click More → Categories in the sidebar.
2. Now click Promotions.
3. Find an email you want to mark as not a promotion and open it.
4. Click the Not "Promotions" button in the top left.

6. Apply Labels

Another effective method to move emails from the Promotions tab to your main inbox is by adjusting the labels on specific emails. This also allows you to change how Gmail categorizes and displays your messages.

1. Open the email that you want to move.
2. Click the three dots at the top.
3. Go to Label as and uncheck the Promotions checkbox, then click Apply.
4. The email will now be removed from the Promotions tab and placed in your Primary inbox.

7. Move Emails from Promotions to Primary in Bulk

In Gmail, you can manually move emails from the Promotions tab to the Primary tab, but unfortunately there's no built-in feature to do it automatically. If you want to bulk move emails already in your Promotions folder, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Promotions tab.
2. Click the Select checkbox in the top left to select all emails from Promotions tab on the page.
3. If you have over 100 emails, click Select all … conversations in Promotions.
4. Click the three dots at the top.
5. Go to Label as and uncheck the Promotions checkbox. Then click Apply.
6. Confirm the bulk action.
7. All the selected messages will be moved to your main inbox in bulk.

How to Move Emails from Promotions to Primary in Gmail App

Here's how to move emails from Promotions to Primary in the Gmail app on your iPhone and Android.

1. Go to Promotions in the Gmail app.
2. Open the email you want to move.
3. Tap the three dots and choose Move.
4. Choose Primary as the destination and you’re done!

How to Teach Gmail to Move Emails From Primary to Promotions

If some promotion emails end up in your main inbox, you can train Gmail to move similar emails to the Promotions tab. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open Gmail and go to the email you want to move.
2. Drag the email from your Primary inbox to the Promotions tab.
3. A message will appear asking if you want to do this for future messages from this sender. Click Yes.

Alternatively, you can create a filter:

1. Open an email and click the three dots at the top.
2. Select Filter messages like this.
3. Click the Create filter button.
4. Check the Categorize as: box and choose Promotions from the dropdown menu.