Many of us are Gmail users, but rarely have we organized the inbox with folders, labels, and filters. Believe me, if you frequently use Gmail and receive a ton of emails, these Gmail hacks will help you tidy up your inbox which will, as a result, boost your productivity too. In just a few clicks, you can filter the emails into various categories and also block emails based on your choice of keyword. You can also choose to move a particular type of message to a custom folder by creating rules on Gmail. So without any wait, let’s go ahead and find out how to create folders and labels in Gmail to keep your inbox organized.
Even though Gmail doesn’t have ‘folders’ per-se, the email platform’s ‘labels’ feature works pretty much the same way. It’s a handy way to organise your inbox to manage your email better. You can create labels in both the web version of Gmail, as well as the Gmail app on iPhone and Android.
How to Create Labels in Gmail on the WebHow to Create Labels in Gmail App (iPhone and Android)How to Move Emails from Inbox to Folders in Gmail
How to Apply Labels to EmailsHow to Automatically Apply Labels to Incoming EmailsHow to Create Sub-folders in GmailHow to Edit or Delete Labels in Gmail
Edit a LabelDelete a Label
How to Apply Labels to EmailsHow to Automatically Apply Labels to Incoming Emails
Edit a LabelDelete a Label
How to Create Labels in Gmail on the Web
First, let’s see how you can make folders (labels) in Gmail on the web.
Next, move to “Inbox” and keep the Inbox type as “Default”.
After that, tick the checkboxes for Social, Promotions, and Updates under the Categories section. This will smartly categorize the emails into multiple folders and will keep your inbox organized. If you want, you can also enable Forums.
Next, move to the “Labels” tab and scroll down. If you find unwanted labels at the bottom then hide them. After that, to create new labels on Gmail, click on the button.
Give it a name, say, “work”. So now onwards, you can move any work-related emails under the “work” label. You don’t need to select anything under the Nested drop-down menu.
To label an email, simply click on the “arrow” button up top and select the appropriate label.
To quickly find an email tagged with “work”, you can scroll down right below “Inbox” and click on “More”. Here, you will find the “work” label. You can also move a label to the top from the Label Settings page by hiding or showing them.
How to Create Labels in Gmail App (iPhone and Android)
If you use the Gmail app more often than the web version, you’ll be glad to know that you can actually create labels from within the app as well. Here’s how. I’m going to show you how to create folders in Gmail app on iPhone, but the method is the same for Android phones as well. So, follow along.
Tap on this option, and then enter a name for your new label. For this example, I’m creating a label called ‘Receipts’. Once you’ve entered a name, tap on ‘Done’.
Gmail automatically takes you to the new label. Obviously, it’s empty right now, but we will talk about how to apply labels and move emails into labels and folders in another section.
So, that’s how you can create inbox folders (labels) in the Gmail app on Android and iPhone.
Now that we have set up labels, let’s take a look at how to move emails into the new labels. There are a couple of ways you can do this. You can apply labels to emails in your Gmail inbox, or you can create filters in Gmail to automatically organise incoming mail into different labels for an even better set up.
First, let’s take a look at how you can apply labels to existing emails in your inbox on both the web and in the Gmail app.
Apply Labels to Emails on Gmail Web
- From the drop-down list, choose the label you want to apply to the email. For this example, I’m gonna move this email to the ‘Receipts’ label. Once you’ve selected the labels, click on ‘Apply’.
Now, when you go to the ‘Receipts’ label from the sidebar, you will find your email within the label. Pretty easy, right?
- Choose the label(s) you want to apply, and tap on the checkmark icon on the top right.
That’s it, the new label will be applied to your email. Now, you can find the email within the label from the sidebar as well.
Now that you know how to apply labels to emails, let’s take things one step further.
You can actually create filters in Gmail. These can automatically sort incoming emails into separate folders (or labels) so you don’t have to do it manually. Here’s how to create filters in Gmail to automatically apply labels to new mails.
Here, enter the conditions for the filter. As you can see, filters can be created based on any one (or a combination) of things like the sender, subject, body text, attachments, and more. Just set it up the way you want to, and click on ‘Create Filter’.
Check the box next to ‘Apply the label’ and choose the label you want to apply. In this example, I’m applying the ‘Receipts’ label. Once done, click on ‘Create Filter’.
Gmail will now automatically apply the selected label to any email that matches the filter you have created. This is a great way to organise your Gmail inbox automatically.
As you must have realised by now, labels in Gmail are really powerful and useful. Plus, they are a great substitute for folders. So, if you want to create nested labels (or sub-folders, so to speak) in Gmail, here’s how you can do that as well.
Open the Gmail web-app. Hover your mouse over the label within which you want to create a nested label, and click on the three dot menu icon that shows up.
In the context menu, click on ‘Add sublabel’.
Give your new label a name, and click on ‘Create’.
That’s it, the new sublabel will show up nested inside the parent label now. You can also create filters to sort emails into sub-folders on Gmail if you want, which is pretty useful.
Careful as you may be, there will be times when you realise you need to make changes to a label, or maybe even delete it entirely. Fortunately, if you misspelled a word in your label, you don’t need to delete your label and make a fresh one. Here’s how to edit (or delete) labels in Gmail.
Open the Gmail web-app. Hover your mouse over the label which you want to edit, and click on the three dot menu icon that shows up.
In the context menu that shows up, click on ‘Edit’.
You can now rename the label, and make other changes to it. Once done, just click on ‘Save’ to finalise your changes.
Delete a Label
Open the Gmail web-app. Hover your mouse over the label which you want to delete, and click on the three dot menu icon that shows up.
In the context-menu that shows up, click on ‘Remove Label’.
Click on ‘Delete’ to confirm, and that’s it.
