Gmail has no folders. It has labels, which do the same job and one more: a message can carry several of them at once. Create a label, move mail into it, and it behaves exactly like a folder. The hard part is not creating the folder but keeping it filled, and that is the part Sortmail does for you, from the day you connect.
Labels are Gmail’s folders
A folder holds one copy of a message in one place. A label is a tag. The message stays in All Mail, and each label you add is another way to find it. Your inbox is a label too: archiving a message just removes the Inbox label, which is why archived mail is never lost.
- One message can sit under Receipts and Travel at the same time, with no duplicate copy.
- Moving a message to a label adds that label and takes the message out of the inbox. That is the folder behaviour most people want.
- Removing a label never deletes the messages under it. They lose that label and stay in All Mail.
- Labels can be nested, so Work/Clients/Acme works like a subfolder inside a subfolder.
How to create a folder in Gmail
On a computer
- In the left-hand sidebar, scroll down to Labels and click the plus sign beside it. If the sidebar is collapsed, click More first.
- Type a name. Name labels by kind of mail, such as Receipts, Newsletters or Notifications, rather than by sender.
- To put the label inside another one, tick "Nest label under" and choose the parent.
- Click Create. The label appears in the sidebar straight away.
On a phone
The Gmail apps for Android and iPhone are built for applying labels rather than managing them. Create, nest and colour your labels in a desktop browser. They show up in the apps on every device as soon as you have made them.
Colour it and choose where it shows
Hover over the label in the sidebar and click its three-dot menu. From there you can:
- Pick a label colour, so it stands out in the message list.
- Choose whether it appears in the sidebar always, only when it holds unread mail, or never.
- Rename it or move it under another label with Edit.
- Remove it. The messages under it are kept.
How to move mail into a folder
Tick one or more messages in the list, then click the Move to icon in the toolbar (a folder with an arrow) and choose the label. The messages leave the inbox and appear under the label. The Labels icon next to it, shaped like a tag, adds a label but leaves the message in the inbox. You can also drag a message onto a label in the sidebar.
To move a whole batch, search for it first, tick the checkbox at the top left of the list, click "Select all conversations that match this search", then use Move to.
How to move emails to a folder automatically
Gmail does this with a filter: a saved search with actions attached. "Skip the Inbox" plus "Apply the label" is Gmail’s version of moving mail into a folder as it arrives.
- Click the sliders icon at the right-hand end of the search bar.
- Fill in only what you need: a sender in From, a whole company as a domain, or words in Subject.
- Click Search first. The results are exactly what the filter will catch, so check a few pages.
- Open the search options again and click "Create filter".
- Tick "Skip the Inbox (Archive it)" and "Apply the label", then choose the label.
- Tick "Also apply filter to matching conversations" to move the mail you already have, and click "Create filter".
A shortcut for one sender: open a message from them, click the three-dot menu at the top right of the message and choose "Filter messages like these". Gmail fills in the From box for you. A domain catches every address at one company:
from:(example.com)Where hand-made folders stop working
Creating labels takes a minute. Keeping them filled is upkeep, because every label is only as good as the filters behind it:
- Filters match only what you anticipated. The first receipt from a new shop lands in the inbox until you notice it and add the domain.
- Senders change. A new sending address or reworded subject line silently stops a filter from matching.
- One domain can mean two kinds of mail. A colleague and a company’s automated notices share an address ending, so a filter catches both or neither.
- Nothing explains a move. When a message turns up under the wrong label, you find out why by reading your whole filter list.
- The phone apps cannot create filters, so every fix waits until you are at a computer.
Let Sortmail create and fill the folders
Sortmail files every new message into one of five categories: Actionable, Personal, Receipts, Newsletters and System. Each is an ordinary Gmail label, such as Sortmail/Receipts. You can rename them, recolour them or add your own, up to 8. Actionable and Personal stay in your inbox. The rest are labelled and archived, which is exactly what moving to a folder means in Gmail.
- New senders are filed on arrival. A receipt is recognised as a receipt, whoever sends it, with no filter to write.
- Every message shows why it was filed: one of your rules, a header signal, the model or your own correction.
- A correction is a rule. Move a message to the right label and every later message from that sender follows it.
- A daily digest, at the hour you choose, lists what stayed in your inbox and what was filed and why.
- Nothing is deleted and nothing is sent. Every move can be undone, and the labels stay in your mailbox if you ever disconnect.
See your own mail filed
Connect a mailbox and Sortmail sorts the last 30 days of your inbox (up to 1,000 messages) free, showing where each message would go and why. It is a preview rather than a trial: nothing is written to your mailbox, no labels and no archiving, until you choose a plan. You judge it on your own mail before you pay anything.
One plan, with every feature in it: $79 a year or $139 for 2 years at the founding price, limited to the first 250 subscribers and locked for as long as the subscription runs, or $12.99 a month. A year costs less than 8 months of monthly, and 2 years less than 14. After the founding seats it is $99 a year or $169 for 2 years. Cancel in one click in Billing.