Gmail labels and filters

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Click on the links within the text below to learn even more.

   Labels vs folders   

There are no folders in Gmail, there are labels instead. Labels are better than folders, because they save up space in your account (see "Only one copy" below).

Imagine this:

- each email is a piece of paper
- labels are post-it notes, sticky notes
- there are default labels, like "Inbox", "Sent items", "Trash" ("Bin"), "Spam"
- you can also create custom labels (i.e. sticky notes)

This means that - unlike in other email services - you do not put the emails into folders.
You actually attach labels to the emails.

Only one copy of your emails exists:

- you only just have ONE existing copy of your emails
- no matter how many labels (post-its) you stick on them
- you can attach as many labels to this one copy as you want, just as you can stick a lot of post-it notes to the same one piece of paper

This is why your email disappears from everywhere when you delete it; because deleting the email means removing the "piece of paper"!!

To create labels:

- either open the "Labels" or the "Move to" drop-down lists after you selected an email
- or go to Settings --> Labels, and type a name in the "Create a new label:" field.
- you can see a list of all of your labels in the list of labels on the left. You may find more labels after clicking on "xx more" above the chat box.

To rename labels:

- go to Settings --> Labels
- click on the name of the label you want to rename
- rename it
You cannot rename system labels.

To find emails with labels:

- either click on the name of the label in the list of labels on the left
- or enable the "Go to label" feature (in Settings --> Labs), and also keyboard shortcuts
   (in Settings); then press <G> then <L>, and type in the pop-up box
- you can narrow down your search considerably by using advanced search (video)
- you can create links to combined search results with the Quick links feature

To hide and unhide labels

You can hide, unhide and rename labels in Settings --> Labels.

If you have a lot of labels and want to organize them in a hierarchy like folders, you can use third-party user scripts like Folders4Gmail (also available as part of the Better Gmail 2 Firefox add-on).

If the concept is still unclear, read this help forum discussion about the labels vs folders topic.

   Drag-and-drop  

Drag and drop a label onto an email

Drag and drop an email onto a label

   Filters   

To make labelling automatic, you can set up filters to sort your incoming messages.

To create filters:

- either click on the "Create a filter" link at the top, right of the "Search the web" button
- or go to Settings --> Filters, and click on "Create a new filter" at the bottom

The headings on the left of your Gmail page (Inbox, Starred, Chats, Sent Mail, Drafts, All Mail, Spam and Bin) are also filters, preset by Gmail. When you click on them, Gmail gives you a filtered view of all your existing emails based on the name of the heading:

Inbox shows you all your emails that you hvave received,
Sent Mail only shows you the ones you sent,
All Mail shows the ones you sent, drafted or received,
and so on.

   Archiving   

To "remove" an email from the Inbox:

If you want to remove a message from your inbox, DO NOT delete it! You can remove the "Inbox" label from an email - like you take a post-it note off a piece of paper. This is called archiving (video link) in Gmail. Select the email and click on "Archive". After this you can find it in All mail or under the label(s) you attached: just click on the name of the label in the list of labels on the left.

You can also "remove" emails from any label view (including the Inbox) by using the
"Move to" menu. This menu combines two steps into one: first it attaches the label(s) you select to the emails you selected, then it removes the label that is currently attached to the email. In short:

The email is not actually moved anywhere, only the labels are replaced on it. "Move to" is not available in search results where the emails have several labels.

In Gmail, "archive" = "it does not have the inbox label". According to this definition, sent items are archive, because they don't have the inbox label. This means that you cannot archive emails from Sent Mail (because they are already in the archives, if we follow Gmail's definition).

   Removing a label   

To "remove" an email from a label:

You actually remove a label from an email, and not an email from a label. Don't forget, labels are not folders. If you want to remove a label from an email, DO NOT delete the email!

- select the email
- use the "Labels" or the "Move to" drop-down lists to remove labels from emails

Alternatively, open the email and click on the "x" next to the label you want to remove.

You cannot remove the Sent mail label. Accept Sent mail for what it is: it is a filtered view of all of your emails to show only those that you sent. You cannot remove the "sent" label, because you did send those emails after all and you cannot make them "unsent".

   Deleting emails   

ONLY emails in Trash and Spam are automatically deleted (after 30 days), all other emails will stay until you delete them (i.e. you put the Trash or Spam label on them).

Note that you can also delete emails by accident with your filters, auto forwarding, POP settings or via an IMAP connection. And don't forget, you only have ONE actual copy of your email! If you delete it, it will be removed from all views (Inbox, labels, Sent Mail, All Mail).

For more, read this knol on deleting messages.

   Further references   

For more info, go to the Gmail Help pages:
    about labels
    about filters
    about archiving

visit the Gmail Help Forum,
or search the Gmail Help Discussion archives.

  To ask a question