Tuesday, April 22, 2008

So When Do We Get Folders in Gmail?

- OK, I followed your advice and switched to Gmail. It's great, but when do we get folders in Gmail?

- Gmail already has something similar to folders: labels. The main difference between folders and labels is that you can add more labels to a message.

- Oh, I see, but I don't think it's very useful to add a message to more folders. I mean, labels.

- You could create labels to categorize your mail and some of the messages will certainly fit in more than one category.

- It doesn't work. I created a label for "Invitations" and I added the label to one of my messages, but it's still there in the inbox.

- That's because "inbox" is also a label and adding another label doesn't remove the other ones.

- So now I have to click on "Delete" to remove the message from my inbox, right?

- No, to remove a message from the inbox, click on "Archive".

- I thought "Archive" compresses my messages to save space.

- I'm sure that Google stores your email efficiently.

- Thanks for your help. Now I know how to use folders in Gmail. I select the message, click on "Archive" and then... Hey, wait a minute! My message has disappeared!

- You can still find it in "All Mail", one of the sections bellow Gmail's logo. "All Mail" includes all the messages, except those from the trash or flagged as spam.

- That's too complicated! So when do we get folders in Gmail?