What's the best way to navigate mail on the Mac?

Hi all. Here's how i manage my mail, tell me if I'm doing it the really hard way. I have three accounts, all under a unified inbox. Now if I go down in the message table, I find drafts, send, junk, trash, archived, because it's Google. Now the junk is from both active accounts. Here's my question. When i go into the inbox, I interact with the scrool area, then in the messages table. I hear something like, enable filter or something like that. Is there any easier way, or is this it? Thanks, just looking for a better faster way to do this.