Labels

A label is a tag you put on a conversation to say what it is about — a client, a project, a month of invoices. Unlike a folder, a label does not move anything, and one conversation can carry as many as it needs.

Labels and folders

Your sidebar now holds two different kinds of thing, and they behave differently on purpose:

• Labelling never moves a message. A labelled message is still in your inbox; the label simply gives you another way to find it.
• Each label has its own view, reached from the sidebar, listing every conversation carrying it.
• They work alongside the views you already have. Starred and Unread gather messages the same way — see Your mailbox & folders.

Create a label

1. Find Labels in the sidebar: It sits below your folders.
2. Choose Create new label: A small window opens asking for the name.
3. Name it: Short names work best, since the name is what you will be picking from a menu later.
4. Choose a parent, or leave it alone: Setting a Parent label files this one underneath another — see Sublabels below.

Put labels on mail

• Use the label control on a message to tick the labels it should carry. Ticking adds, unticking removes, and a conversation can carry several at once.
• Search inside the menu once you have more than a handful. Typing narrows the list rather than making you scroll it.
• Label several conversations in one go. Select the messages first, then apply — the whole selection is updated together rather than one at a time.
• Labels show on the message itself as small chips, so you can see what a conversation is filed under without opening the menu.
• The label applies to the conversation, not to one message inside it, which is what keeps a long thread from being filed two ways at once.

Sublabels

Labels can sit inside other labels, which is how a long list stays usable — a Clients label with one sublabel per client, rather than thirty labels in a row.

• Make one from the parent — open the label's own menu and choose Add sublabel.
• Or set the parent when you create it, using the Parent label field.
• They nest as deep as you need, and appear indented under their parent in the sidebar.
• A sublabel is a label like any other. It has its own colour, its own visibility and its own view.

Colour and visibility

Each label carries three settings, found in its own menu or together under Settings → Labels:

• The two visibility settings are independent. A label hidden from the sidebar still tags mail and still shows its chip, unless you turn that off too — hiding is about tidying the sidebar, not about switching the label off.
• Show if unread is the one worth knowing. It keeps a label out of the way until something arrives under it, which suits a label you only care about occasionally.
• Your folders can be hidden too. The System labels section of Settings → Labels gives Inbox, Sent, Drafts and the rest the same label-list setting, for trimming a sidebar you do not use all of.

Rename and delete

• Rename or re-parent from the label's menu. Editing takes the same window as creating, so you can change its name and where it sits at once.
• Renaming keeps everything. Conversations carrying the label keep carrying it under the new name.
• Deleting a label never deletes mail. The conversations stay exactly where they are and simply stop carrying that label.
• Sublabels survive their parent. Delete a label that has labels under it and they move up one level rather than disappearing with it.