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Using Labels and Colors to create Gmail Folders

Pt. 5 of 10 | 2:54 |

Gmail 201: Intermediate Studies

Friday June 26, 2009

When Gmail was first released one thing that troubled some users was that it wasn't going to use folders. Folders are used everywhere, right? In Windows, on a Mac, in Linux, in Outlook, in Thunderbird, they all have folders. How can you

work without folders

? In short, better. If you give good

labels

to your incoming email and

filter

that email intelligently, by the time you add colors you have essentially made yourself folders without boundaries. Folders that aren't conventional folders, but they serve the same purpose.

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Show Notes

- Open Gmail in your Web browser.

- By using

labels, filters, and colors

you can effectively have a system better than folders.

- Colorizing aspects of your email lets you see immediately what has come in and from what sources.

- You can further refine email by

adding a filter

to narrow down the results.

- In our example, I created a filter for my sister-in-law and give it the label Family so I would know when an email was from her.

- With a traditional folder, you must decide which folder will contain a given email message. With Gmail's system you can apply multiple labels to one email. i.e. Family + Business.

- Gmail gives you the power to create flexible "folders" that can be modified on-the-fly with new