Gmail’s automatic filters seem broken as promotional emails flood user inboxes

Andrew Romero | Jan 24 2026 - 9:20 am PT

Gmail’s filter system has been a strong way to quiet the noise of constant promotional emails and updates, but it might be broken. We are seeing several reports of Google’s email service not filtering emails as inboxes blow up.

Early Saturday morning, users began experiencing an influx of abnormal notifications. Gmail’s automatic Promotions and Updates filters seem to have broken down for the time being. This report comes from several on the 9to5Google team, as well as several reports online from Reddit and Google’s official forums.

Gmail has had an automatic filter system for quite a long time, now, and it generally works reliably well. That makes the sudden fault all the more noticeable. Instead of receiving a few personal emails in intermittent intervals, notifications have been pouring in nonstop for some.

These emails are from companies and businesses whose emails would normally be filtered into either the Promotions or Updates tabs. Google’s redesign in 2013 introduced the automatic filters, and users have become more than used to the reduced amount of notifications that have followed since.

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Looking into those respective tabs, no new emails since the problem first began occurring seem to have been filtered in. In essence, the automatic system that sorts or filters emails into each of Gmail’s inbox categories seems to have broken for the time being.

Google has yet to address the issue, though the issue seems to be widespread among users.

This is a developing story, and it will be updated as more information becomes available…