How to Set Up Gmail Subfolders and Nested Labels

By Heinz Tschabitscher, About.com Guide

See More About:

• gmail labels
• using gmail
• organizing email
• gmail productivity
• gmail

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One label for mom, one for dad, one label for this project and one for that.

To organize mail, Gmail's labels are impeccably useful: you can add any conversation to any number of labels, after all, and create as many labels as you need.

Now, of course, you have to organize your labels. To organize labels, Gmail's labels are pretty useful: you can nest them like folders, after all, in a hierarchy of labels.

Set Up Gmail Subfolders and Nested Labels

To create a subfolder or nested label in Gmail:

• Make sure Nested Labels is enabled in Gmail labs (see below).
• Follow the Settings link in Gmail.
• Go to the Labels tab.
• Use '/' to nest labels.
• To make both "Hokkaido" and "Panama" subfolders of "Trips" and "Trips" one of "Fun", for example, create the following labels:
  • Fun
  • Fun/Trips
  • Fun/Trips/Hokkaido
  • Fun/Trips/Panama
• Make sure you do create all labels the parent labels, even if you do not plan to assign them to any messages.
  • Just having "Fun/Trips/Hokkaido" and "Fun/Trips/Panama" but not "Fun" and "Fun/Trips" will not work, for example.
• Use the Create a new label field to add new labels.
• To rename an existing label, click on its existing title.

A parent label will become bold when any of its sub-labels contains an unread message.

Enable Nested Labels in Gmail

To turn on nested folders in Gmail:

• Go to Settings.
• Open the Labs tab.
• Make sure Enable is selected for Nested Labels.
• Press Save Changes.

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