How to Create Folders in Gmail in 30 Seconds

First thing’s first: In Gmail, folders are referred to as labels.

Now, this part’s easy. Like, really easy.

To create a label, all you have to do is go to the left side of your inbox and click More. From there, you’ll see the option Create new label. In the pop-up window, name your label:

Just like that.

Note: You’ll also notice the option to Nest label under — where you can create new subfolders.

Let’s say, for example, you have a main folder for Google Alerts and you’d like to organize alert emails by month. You could create a label “Google Alerts” and then subfolders like  “January” and “February” to nest each month underneath.

Another way to create labels is by going through Settings:

1. Click the Settings icon.
2. Go to the Labels tab.
3. At the bottom, click Create New Label.
4. Name the label.
5. Click Save.

Video

Find emails in a category

Can’t find emails in a category

Archived emails won’t show up in their category tabs. To find emails you’ve archived, search for the email in the box at the top of the page.

Search a category

Type category: then the category name before your search term. For example, category:social party shows you emails in the Social tab that include “party.” These categories can be used in searches, even if the category isn’t currently enabled as a tab: Primary—Emails from people you know and messages that don’t appear in other tabs. Social—Messages from social networks and media-sharing sites. Promotions—Deals, offers, and other promotional emails. Updates—Notifications, confirmations, receipts, bills, and statements. Forums—Messages from online groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists. Reservations—Flight confirmations, hotel bookings, and restaurant reservations. Purchases— Order, shipping, and delivery emails. Tip: “Reservations” and “Purchases” can’t be enabled as tabs, but can be used in searches and filters.

Keep Your Sent Messages Organized With These Tricks

How to Manage Your Gmail Labels With Ease

Once you create labels, you may need to tweak them.

Whether you need to rename a label, hide one that you don’t want to delete, or remove a label altogether, there’s a simple solution for that within the Labels tab of Settings.

You can get there by either clicking More on the left-side of your inbox (then Manage Labels), or through Setting then Labels (as mentioned in previous step).

From this screen, you’ll see your labels (and sub-labels) listed with the option to show or hide them in the label list or message list.

From here, you can also remove or edit your labels:

How to Add a Label to a Message You’re Sending

This trick comes in handy when you’re sending outgoing messages that you want to be labeled:

1. Click Compose.
2. In the bottom right corner, click More options.
3. Click Label.
4. Choose a label to add.

Bonus: How to Create Folders For Future Emails

What if I told you that you could set up folders for future emails that would save you time writing and searching for old emails?

That’s why we created a tool that does it for you. It’s called Templates, and it appears as a button in your inbox.

The end picture: Your future emails are already written for you — they wait for you to add custom info and press “send.”

Here are some benefits of having a template library:

• Quick, easy organization: Categorize your messaging (cold emails, follow-up, break up etc.) for fast reference.
• Pre-filled messaging: The information you keep typing is already there for you, with placeholders for the info that changes. What it means for you? Less mistakes, more time saved. It’s a win-win.

Here’s how you can get started with templates:

1. Get Yesware in your inbox (completely free, 60-second setup).
2. Click on the Templates module.
3. Create and save templates (or steal free ones from our blog — Bookmark this page for later).

Tired of re-writing emails?Save your top-performing emails as templates

How to Manage Rules in Gmail

After you create a set of rules, modify or delete rules as your needs change.

To manage your Gmail filters:

1. Open Gmail in a web browser.

2. Select Settings (the gear icon).

3. Select Settings.

4. In the Settings screen, choose Filters and Blocked Addresses.

5. To make changes to a rule, select edit. To remove a rule so that it no longer filters your email, select delete.

Check the number of messages in your inbox

In Gmail, replies to a message are grouped into conversations. In your inbox, you’ll see the number of conversations you have, but not messages.

Follow these steps to see how many messages are in your inbox:

1. On your computer, open Gmail. You can’t find your total number of messages from the Gmail app.
2. In the top right, click Settings Settings.
3. Scroll down to the “Conversation view” section.
4. Select Conversation view off.
5. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.
6. Go back to your inbox to see the number of messages you have. If you have multiple sections or categories, make sure to add together the number from each section.
7. When you’re done, go back to settings and turn on “Conversation view.”

How to create labels in Gmail

Before you begin, open your inbox. Do this by going to gmail.com and logging in with your credentials. 

You’re in? All right, let’s get to it! 

Step 1: Select at least one email

Gmail does not allow you to make a folder with nothing in it, so if you haven’t decided which emails you want to put in a folder, take a moment to do that now. Keep in mind you can always add or remove emails from the folder, so don’t stress out about it too much. 

Select the email by checking the box next to it in your inbox.

Step 2: Click on the label icon and select “Create new”

Click on the label icon in the top menu bar directly above your inbox. It looks like a small tab or arrow. This icon will not appear until you’ve selected at least one email, so if you can’t see the icon, make sure you have an email selected.

Since you want to create a new folder, select “Create new” on the bottom of the dropdown menu.

Step 3: Name the folder and choose a nesting option

After you click on “Create new,” another menu will appear prompting you to give your new label a name. Type an appropriate name for the label/folder underneath “Label as.” The name you typed will appear in quotations next to “(create new).”  Click on this button to create the label.

After you create the new label, another box will pop up asking you to choose a nesting option. If you want your label to stand alone, select “Create” then move on to the next step. 

If you have a label you’ve already created that you would like your new label to nest under, select that label from the “Please select a parent” drop-down menu.

Step 4: Add more emails to the label

Now that you’ve created a label, you can add other emails to it. Do this by selecting the emails you want to add from your inbox, clicking the label icon, then selecting the label you’d like to add to.

You can remove emails from the label/folder the same way. Just select the email, click the label icon, and uncheck the label from the menu.

Tip: You can color-code a label by hovering over it in the sidebar, clicking the three dots next to it, hovering over “Label color,” then clicking on a color.

Editing or deleting filters

To edit or delete a filter, follow the same set of steps as above, ie. gear icon→settings→filters and blocked addresses.

This now shows you a list of all your existing Gmail filters. In addition to this, next to each filter, you see an option to either edit the filter or to delete it.

Clicking on ‘edit’ opens up a dropdown menu which allows you to refine your filter conditions.

For instance, I’ve now modified the filter and added a condition to filter emails containing the keyword ‘Confirmation.’ Clicking on ‘Continue’ takes you to the next dropdown which then allows you to modify the actions you want the filter to take.

For instance, in this case, the filter was used to add a label to an email. I’m now using it to also send emails that contain a particular keyword to the trash.

Clicking on ‘Update filter’ edits the filter conditions.

Deleting a filter is simple. Simply click on the ‘delete’ option next to the filter you wish to delete, confirm that you wish to delete the filter you have selected and you’re all done.

Pro-tip: Gmail allows you to take bulk actions on filters. Use the checkboxes on the left-hand side columns of the filters and choose one, many, or all of the filters.

How do you create a filter in Gmail?

There are two ways of creating filters in Gmail.

Using the search bar

Go to the Gmail search bar, type in a keyword or specific email address you’d like to filter out and click on the gray triangle.

Clicking on the gray rectangle opens up a dropdown. This dropdown allows you to further refine your filter conditions. Once you’ve done that, click on the “create filter” option.

You can now choose what you want this filter to do. For instance, in this case, I’d like to have all emails that contain the keyword “SEO” and are from the email address [email protected] to go into my Updates folder instead of my primary inbox.

Clicking on the “Create filter” button will now create the said filter and all emails which contain the keyword “SEO” and are from the email address [email protected] will now appear in my “Updates” folder instead of my primary inbox.

Pro tip: Remember to click on the “Also apply filter to matching conversations” checkbox. This way, all your pre-existing emails that match the filter conditions will also be included within the filter conditions.

With this, you have created your first Gmail filter and are on your way to achieving email nirvana.

Creating a filter from the settings menu in Gmail

Click on the ‘gear icon’ on the top right of your Gmail screen.

Pick ‘settings’ from the dropdown.

And then click on ‘filters and blocked addresses.’ This section shows you the existing Gmail filters which are applied to your Google account.

To create a new filter, click on the “Create a new filter” option.

This opens up a dropdown menu, which if you’ve read through the previous section looks familiar.

The rest of the steps to create the filter remain the same as in the previous section.

Create and manage your folders in Gmail

Now that we’ve covered how to create folders for Gmail we’ll dive deeper into ways you can better organize your Gmail folders to increase productivity and a well-balanced inbox.

Create new folders for Gmail

Creating a new folder for Gmail is a pretty easy task to do and can be done in just a few clicks.

1. Go to Settings, “The gear icon“on the top right
2. Click on “See all settings“

About the Author

Sandy Writtenhouse Sandy is an author for the 9to5 family of sites where she shares her passion for technology by writing how-tos.

Tags