How to filter GitHub notification emails in Gmail

Updated August 2026 · 5 min read

GitHub can send a lot of email — and once it does, your real inbox drowns. The standard fix is a Gmail filter. Done right, it takes five minutes and keeps every GitHub mail searchable without letting it near your inbox. Here's the setup, plus the limits of filtering you should know about before you rely on it.

Step 1: Know the address patterns

GitHub notification emails arrive from [email protected], and replies go to reply+<hash>@reply.github.com. That gives you two reliable anchor points for filters:

from:([email protected])
from:(reply.github.com)

If your organization routes through a custom domain or you use a plus-address ([email protected]), filter on that instead — it's even more precise.

Step 2: Create the base filter

1. In Gmail, click the search options slider in the search bar.
2. In From, enter [email protected].
3. Click Create filter.
4. Tick Skip the Inbox (Archive it), Apply the label → create a label called GitHub, and optionally Mark as read.
5. Check Also apply filter to matching conversations so existing GitHub mail is swept up too.

Result: GitHub mail is labeled and archived, never in your face. Repeat with reply.github.com if you also want comment replies captured.

Step 3: Split by importance (the part most people skip)

A single "GitHub" label treats a mention in a critical PR the same as an automated dependabot bump. You can do better with subject-line filters applied before the catch-all one:

• Mentions: from:[email protected] subject:"mentioned you" → label GitHub/Mentions, keep in inbox.
• Review requests: subject:"requested your review" → label GitHub/Reviews, keep in inbox.
• Your own activity: subject:"your pull request" or subject:"your issue" → label GitHub/Mine, archive.

Gmail applies the most specific matching filter's actions in the order the filters were created, so create the inbox-keeping ones first and the archive-everything rule last. Verify the order under Settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses.

Step 4: Cut whole categories at the source

Filtering is cleanup; some mail is better never sent. In GitHub → Settings → Notifications:

• Turn off Automatically watch repositories — this alone kills most of the volume (see our guide on notifications that come back as unread).
• Set Participating and @mentions as your default watching level.
• Uncheck email for events you handle elsewhere: Releases, Repository submissions, Dependabot alerts if they're routed to Slack or Teams instead (we have walkthroughs for both Slack and Discord).

Where filtering falls short

The filter works — until you notice what it costs:

• Email lags. Digests arrive on GitHub's schedule, not yours. A review request at 10:00 may reach your inbox at 11:00. Filters sort the mail, they don't speed it up.
• The label becomes a second inbox. A well-filtered GitHub label with 200 unread threads is just the problem moved one click away.
• You still miss things. Filtering optimizes for "don't bother me", not "tell me when it matters". Those goals fight each other inside email.