Part 5 – Customise your labels menu in Gmail – 10 Useful Gmail Tips and Tricks

Labels allow you to organise your email messages into categories. They are similar to folders, however, unlike folders, you can apply more than one label to a single message.

Create a New Label
You can create your own custom labels to keep your inbox organised and even move messages out of the inbox into your labels (acting as folders). We will show you how to create a label nested under another label, like a subfolder within a folder.

To create a new custom label that will be the main folder, click “More” in the list of labels on the left side of the main Gmail screen.When the list expands, click the “Create new label” link. Enter a name for the label in the “Please enter a new label name” edit box on the “New Label” dialogue box. Click “Create” to finish creating the new label.

NOTE: Because this is the parent label that will contain the sub-label, we will not nest this label.

To create a sub-label under the parent label you just created, click “Create new label” again.

On the “New Label” dialogue box, enter the name of the sub-label you want to create in the “Please enter a new label name” edit box. Select the “Nest label under” check box, select the parent label you just created from the drop-down list and click “Create.”

You can also create a nested label by entering the parent label, followed by a slash (/), and then entering the nested label name – all in the “… new label name” edit box. For example, we could enter “Personal/Friends” in the edit box and not select the “Nest label under” check box.

NOTE: The parent label must already exist to create a nested label under it. You cannot create both labels at the same time. In our example, we must create the “Personal” label first before creating the nested “Friends” label.

The new parent label, with its nested label, is also added to the list of labels available on the “Labels” action button, as well as the list of labels available on the “Move to” action button.

NOTE: Gmail supports a maximum of 5,000 labels, including sub-labels. If you exceed this limit, you may find that your Gmail experience is slower, and you may experience errors. Remove the labels that you might not be using anymore. Deleting labels does not delete messages.