What is Gmail’s Relevance Filtering (2024–2025 update)?

Gmail's Relevance Filtering represents an evolution in how Gmail prioritizes emails within categories. Rather than simply sorting into tabs, Gmail now ranks messages by predicted relevance to each specific user, potentially burying less relevant emails even within appropriate categories.

This 2024 to 2025 update means landing in Promotions is no longer sufficient. Within Promotions, Gmail surfaces emails it predicts the user will find valuable based on past engagement patterns, sender reputation, and content relevance signals.

For marketers, this change increases the importance of engagement quality over send volume. Sending more emails to unengaged subscribers can actually hurt visibility as Gmail learns your messages are not relevant to those users. The update rewards senders who maintain strong engagement and punishes those who prioritize reach over relevance.