Confirm alerts are on email, not SMS-only
Log into each bank’s net-banking or mobile app and verify transaction alerts go to the Gmail address you plan to use. SMS alerts are useful for fraud detection but terrible for month-end summaries — you cannot search “all food spending” across 400 SMS messages.
Use Gmail filters for bank senders
Create a label like “Bank Alerts” and filters that match your banks’ alert sender addresses (e.g. alerts from HDFC, SBI, ICICI domains). Skip the Promotions tab trap — bank mail sometimes lands in Updates or Promotions depending on the template.
- One filter per bank using “from:” addresses you recognize
- Skip Inbox + apply label if you want a clean primary inbox
- Never filter personal mail into the same label as bank alerts
When you are ready to automate
Organized alerts are step one. Step two is extracting transactions automatically — which is what Paisewise does with read-only Gmail access to known bank senders only. The web app is live and free while in beta.