Labels are an essential part of email inboxes. They provide a flexible and customizable setup for your messages. They allow users to categorize their emails, group related messages together, and quickly find past threads by their theme.
If you learn how to automatically label emails in Gmail and add shared tags, your inbox will be less cluttered. And having a tidy inbox helps streamline work and collaboration.
This article runs you through everything you need to know about optimizing and automating labels in Gmail.
The benefits of using labels in Gmail
There are a few reasons why all Gmail users should use labels to increase their productivity:
Keeping an organized inbox with no extra effort
One of the main benefits of using Gmail labels is that they provide a way to organize Gmail messages as they come. Instead of having a single location to store important conversations, labels allow messages to be tagged with multiple categories, making it easier to find them when needed.
Simultaneous Gmail labels for priorities
For example, if you label all incoming messages from team members as “Work”, you can filter and deal with them accordingly. But work emails have their own specifics as well. So you could create a label for a specific project and add it to all emails around this theme. Then, if your team members email you, both labels will be used. This makes it easier to visualize quickly what the message is about.
Multiple inboxes in one with Gmail labels
Adding labels in Gmail is that they allow users to customize their email inbox. Then, they use it to suit their own needs. Through the search function, users can sort messages by their own labels.
With this, they will be able to see a part of their inbox. For instance, messages labeled as pertaining to a specific project. This tunnel view allows users to adapt their inbox to their own workflow and priorities.
It also optimizes productivity. If someone decides to dedicate an hour to a certain task, all they need to do is search for the incoming messages by the Gmail label. This would allow them to quickly find all emails related to that task, even if they come from multiple senders.
Label emails in Gmail for a quick glance
Labels also provide a visual cue for messages that require attention. For example, a user could create a label called “TBD” and apply it to all emails that require their time. This would allow them to quickly see which messages are more urgent without having to click through each one.
How to add labels in Gmail
Gmail labels are easy to create. The first step is to access your Gmail inbox. On the left sidebar, click on “Create new label”. Click on it, and a pop-up to create the new label will appear.
If you want to add already existing emails to this label, you can select them from your inbox. The menu that appears on the top has a label icon. Click on it, then a drop-down menu will appear, with all existing labels for your account. You can label emails in Gmail by adding them to an existing one or creating a new label directly from your inbox.
How to add automatic Gmail labels
Now, the key for maximum inbox productivity is having your Gmail labels for you. Not the other way around. Luckily, setting up automations is just as easy. Say you want to add all incoming messages from your manager to an “Urgent” label.
Search for “from:[[emailprotected]]” . A pop-up will show up confirming your search options. You can pick based on time, attachment size or messages containing certain words. Then, click “Create filter”.
On the next screen, you can choose what to do with the filter. To label emails in Gmail automatically, pick “Add label” and select from the ones you’ve created (or create a new one).
Now, all incoming messages that fit the criteria will automatically have the Gmail label you set up.
