Too many GitHub notifications in Gmail? This post gives an example of how to use Google app script to automatically add labels like "Direct mention" and "Participating" to threads you care about.

// Main function
function processInbox() {
  var unreadThreadCount = GmailApp.getInboxUnreadCount();
  if (unreadThreadCount == 0) { return null; }

  var threads = GmailApp.getInboxThreads(0, unreadThreadCount);
  for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++) {
    var thread = threads[i];
    var messages = thread.getMessages();

    if ((messages[0].getFrom()).indexOf("notifications@github.com") > -1) {
      thread.moveToArchive();

      // Iterate through newest messages, returning a GmailThread if a label was added to the thread.
      // Only one label will be added, and they are listed in priority below.
      var start = Math.max(0, messages.length - 1);
      var label;
      for (var j = start; j > -1; j--) {
        var message = messages[j];
        var body = message.getRawContent();
        if (body.indexOf("X-GitHub-Reason: mention") > -1) {
          return thread.addLabel(GmailApp.getUserLabelByName("Direct mention"));
        } else if ((body.indexOf("X-GitHub-Reason: author") > -1) || (body.indexOf("X-GitHub-Reason: comment") > -1)) {
          return thread.addLabel(GmailApp.getUserLabelByName("Participating"));
        } else if (body.indexOf("X-GitHub-Reason: team_mention") > -1) {
          return thread.addLabel(GmailApp.getUserLabelByName("Team mention"));
        } else {
          return thread.addLabel(GmailApp.getUserLabelByName("Notification"));
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

This fixes timeout and resource exhaustion errors. Google has limits on how much resources a script can take per run.

Rather than matching every GitHub header, this script applies the most important label to a thread. I check my messages in this order:

This script assumes "Direct Mention", "Participating", "Team mention", and "Notification" labels exist. Labels can be created programmatically, but I decided it was not worthwhile for such a simple script.

By processing newest messages first, threads will always have the highest priority label applied. This is also good for performance because the script stops processing a thread as soon as we label one of it's messages.

// Modified from http://lyzidiamond.com/posts/github-notifications-google-script/

// Assumes incoming threads from notifications@github.com are labeled with `unprocessed`.

function perf(start) {
  Logger.log("Execution time: " + (Date.now() - start) + " ms");
}

function processInbox() {
  var startTime = Date.now();
  var directMentionRegexp = /@jch\b/;
  var teamRegexp = /@github\/(github|tests|other-teams)\b/;

  var unprocessedLabel = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName('unprocessed');
  var directMentionLabel = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName('Direct Mention');
  var teamMentionLabel = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName('Team mention');
  var notificationLabel = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName("Notification");

  var threads = GmailApp.search('label:unprocessed');

  Logger.log("Processing " + threads.length + " threads");

  for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++) {
    // Remove the `unprocessed` label, it'll be re-labeled again if a new message comes in
    var thread = threads[i];
    thread.removeLabel(unprocessedLabel);

    // Thread is already labeled, no need to process further
    var labels = thread.getLabels();
    if (labels.includes(directMentionLabel) || labels.includes(teamMentionLabel)) {
      continue;
    }

    // Iterate through newest messages, exiting if a label was added to the thread.
    // Only one label will be added, and they are listed in priority below.
    var messages = thread.getMessages();
    var start = Math.max(0, messages.length - 1);
    var label;
    for (var j = start; j > -1; j--) {
      var message = messages[j];

      if (!message.isUnread()) {
        break; // remaining messages have been processed before
      }

      var body = message.getPlainBody();
      if (directMentionRegexp.test(body)) {
        thread.addLabel(directMentionLabel);
        break;
      } else if (teamRegexp.test(body)) {
        thread.addLabel(teamMentionLabel);
        break;
      } else {
        thread.addLabel(notificationLabel);
      }
    }
    perf(startTime);
  }

  perf(startTime);
}

How to sort GitHub notifications in Gmail

The script

Changes

2016-04-7 Update