All About Labels

Because Google stores all the unarchived mail in one giant Inbox,as soon as you get more than a handful of messages,you’ll probably sometimes need to search your Inbox for specific messages.Although this works quite well most of the time,sometimes it’s more convenient to set aside certain messages for easy retrieval.

That’s one of the primary functions of labels.They help you organize your mail within your Inbox or within the All Mail folder.While you’re viewing a message,press the Menu button, and then tap View Labels to display the screen .Just tap the label you want to apply.You can apply multiple labels to a single message.

Note: You can also add labels by tapping and holding a single message and choosing Change labels from the pop- up menu.

Although applying labels is quite easy,there is no way to create new labels on your phone.To do that,you need to open www.gmail.com on your computer and sign in with the same account you’re using on your phone.From there,you can edit labels or create new ones.

Applying Labels to Received Mail Automatically

Although it’s useful to be able to apply labels to mail you have received,it isn’t very efficient. The following steps show you how you can automatically apply labels to new messages as you receive them:

1. On your computer,open Gmail and click the Edit labels option on the left side of the screen.

2. Click the word Filters at the top of the screen.

3. Click Create a new filter.

Note: Although we’re showing you only a small feature of filters,perhaps we should mention what filters are. Essentially,filters are what you would call rules in most other mail programs,a way to do things to messages automatically.In this case,we’re going to be automatically applying a label to messages as they come in so that you can more easily find them on your phone.

4. Specify the criteria you want,such as From: john@doe.com or Has the words:“Family Reunion.”

5. Click Test Search to verify that the filter captures the messages you intend.If not,continue editing the criteria.

6. Click Next Step and choose the action you want to happen when you receive a filtered message.You can take a variety of actions,including applying a label.

7. Choose the label you’d like to apply,and then click Create Filter.