Using labels

Labels help you organize your messages into categories -- work, family, to do, read later, jokes, recipes, any category you want. Labels do all the work that folders do, but with an added bonus: you can add more than one to a message.

Only you can see your labels, so whether you mark a message with "Best friend" or "Read later," the sender will never know.

Create a label

1. On the left side of the page, click More at the bottom of your labels list. (If you don't see "More," grab the gray dividing line with your cursor and drag it down to show more labels.)
2. Click Create new label.
3. Type the name of your new label and click Create.

You can also create a new label for a message in your Inbox by selecting the box next to the message, clicking the Label button above your message list, and then clicking Create new.

Apply your label

• When viewing your Inbox, select the checkbox next to those messages, click the Labels button, and click the label you want. (Or check the boxes next to several labels and click Apply.)
• When viewing a message, click the Labels button to add a label to the message. You can also click and drag a label from the left side, and drop it on the message.
• When writing a new message, click More options in the bottom right corner of the compose window, click Label, and then select one of your labels.

Organize your labels

You can control some of the settings for your labels on your Labels tab. Get there by clicking the gear icon , select Settings, then Labels. Here are a few examples:

Choose which labels appear in your list on the left: In the "Show in label list" column, click the "show" or "hide" link next to each label to choose whether it will be shown in the left panel of your Gmail pages. You can also set labels to appear only when they contain unread messages (otherwise, they will be hidden).

Choose which labels appear on your messages: In the "Show in message list" column, you can choose whether you'll see each label displayed next to its messages' subject lines. Click hide if you don't want to see that label name when you look at the messages it contains.

Delete labels: If you see a label that you don't want anymore, click remove in the "Actions" column. (You'll have to confirm that you'd like to remove the label by clicking Delete.)

Tip: To keep organized, some people like to have incoming messages be automatically labeled and removed from their inbox until they can look at it later at a more convenient time. If you want to do this, create a filter.

Note: Gmail supports a maximum of 5,000 labels, including sub-labels and IMAP keywords. If you exceed this limit, you may find that your Gmail experience is slower, and you may get an error. We suggest removing the labels that you might not be using anymore (deleting labels won't delete messages).