Exclusion categories
Keep whole types of mail and meetings, such as cold pitches or personal email, out of your CRM with categories on each connected account.
Exclusion categories keep whole types of activity out of your CRM, such as cold sales pitches, personal email or hiring. You describe each category in plain words, and Lightfield checks every email and meeting from that connected account against your descriptions. Excluded activity is kept aside, not deleted, so you can review it and bring back anything that belongs in the CRM.
Availability
Section titled “Availability”Every plan has exclusion categories. Categories belong to one connected mail or calendar account, and only the member who connected that account can see or change them. Admins can’t edit a teammate’s categories.
Set up your categories
Section titled “Set up your categories”New accounts start with five categories: Cold sales pitches, Mass advertising, Promotional events, Personal and Automated noise. Keep them to start with: each is written to match only clear cases, so it’s unlikely to hide a real conversation.
- Go to Settings → Mail and Calendar and open your account.
- Find Excluded activity types.
- Click Add category, then choose Custom category or one of the Templates (Email warm-up, Fundraising or Hiring).
- Enter a Name and a Description, and pick what it Applies to: Mail, Meetings or both. To edit an existing category, open its actions menu and choose Edit category.
- Click Apply changes (the button includes the number of pending changes), read the summary, and confirm with Apply changes.
When it worked, you see Your changes were saved. Mail and meetings are being reprocessed.
You can also ask the agent in chat, for example “Exclude mail from recruiters on my Gmail account.” It shows the change for you to approve before anything is saved.
What changes when you apply a category
Section titled “What changes when you apply a category”Lightfield reads the title, text and participants of each email or meeting, plus attachment names. It doesn’t read attachment contents or look at your CRM records.
| When you | What happens |
|---|---|
| Add or edit a category | New mail and meetings use it right away. Lightfield also rechecks all of the account’s existing mail and meetings in the background, which can take a while. Matches are kept out of the CRM. Contacts and accounts already linked to them remain. |
| Remove a category | Activity that no longer matches any category comes back into the CRM, and can create contacts and accounts under the account’s Account & contact creation setting. |
| Click Sync anyway | That email or meeting comes back into the CRM and is never checked against categories again. |
Some activity stays in the CRM even when one account’s category matches:
- Sequence email. Emails your sequences send, and the replies to them, always sync.
- Shared activity. When an email or meeting involves more than one connected account in your workspace, it’s excluded only when it matches one of each account’s own categories. If it’s on a teammate’s account that has no matching category, it stays in the CRM.
Excluding activity doesn’t delete records. A contact or account that was created from email before you added a category stays in your CRM. To remove records you don’t want, delete them from the record (see Deleted items), or ask the agent to clean up in bulk.
Review excluded activity
Section titled “Review excluded activity”- Go to Settings → Mail and Calendar and open your account.
- Click See excluded activity. The Mail and Meetings tabs list what’s excluded, with the Category that matched.
- To bring something back, open its More actions menu and choose Sync anyway.
In Excluded activity types, See excluded on a category shows only what that category matched.
Remove a category or restore defaults
Section titled “Remove a category or restore defaults”- Remove a category: open its actions menu, choose Remove category, then click Apply changes. Activity it was holding back comes back into the CRM and can create new contacts and accounts.
- Restore defaults: note any custom categories you want to keep first. From More category actions, choose Restore defaults. This replaces your draft with the five starting categories. Review it, then click Apply changes and confirm. Custom categories absent from the restored list are removed.
Categories can’t be turned off for a while and back on. To stop one from applying, remove it; you can add it again later from Templates or as a Custom category.
Common questions
Section titled “Common questions”What happens to my contacts and accounts if I exclude recruiter mail?
They stay. Matching email and meetings are kept out of the CRM, but contacts and accounts that already exist aren’t deleted or changed. Delete any you don’t want from the record, or ask the agent to clean them up.
Does a new category only affect new email?
No. New mail and meetings use it right away, and Lightfield also rechecks everything already synced from that account in the background, which can take a while.
Is excluded email stored?
Yes. Excluded mail and meetings are kept aside, not deleted. You can review them under See excluded activity and bring any back with Sync anyway.
Why is an email I excluded still in the CRM?
Usually one of three reasons: the recheck is still running, the email is part of a sequence, or a teammate’s connected account is also on it and none of their categories match. Check See excluded activity after the recheck finishes.
Can an admin set categories for the whole workspace?
No. Categories belong to each connected account, and only the member who connected it can change them. To keep a domain out for everyone, use the Do not track list instead; see How records are created.