In Gmail, you use labels to categorize your email. Labels are like folders, but with a twist—you can apply several labels to an email, then later find the email by clicking any of its labels from the left panel. You can also search by a label. You can use labels to: Track the status of people’s tasks.

In other words, a Gmail label is a tag that can be added to every email you receive or send. You can also add them to drafts.

What is the difference between labels and folders in Gmail?

Gmail labels are similar to folders, however, unlike folders, you can apply more than one label to a single message. So a single email message can be in different Gmail labels.

Reasons to Use Gmail Labels

Here are some::

1. It helps productivity – organizing your emails in labels makes it easier to find them in the future, which helps save you time and boost your productivity.
2. It simplifies sharing and collaboration – If you need to forward or share emails with colleague you can just click on the label and share it.
3. It simplifies archiving and backup – organizing your emails in labels makes your backup and archiving much simpler. For example, if you want to archive emails to your CRM like SkySlope (real estate CRM), then just archive this label to PDF

Gmail label Examples

You can use labels to:

1. Track the status of people’s tasks. For example, create the labels Laura: In Progress and Laura: Done to indicate email that Laura is working on or has completed.
2. Organize email by nesting labels like subfolders. For example, create the label Tasks. Under Tasks, create nested labels by a person.
3. Identify email that needs follow-up.
4. Organize emails by the project.

   For example, if you are a lawyer, you can create two labels ACTIVE CASES and ARCHIVED CASES and your cases as sublabels. So your label structure will look like this:

     
   
    |-- ACTIVE CASES
    |    |
    |    |-- Case 2108959 - Jhon Doe
    |    |-- Case 2108310 - Alice Doe
    |    |-- Case 2338310 - Pancho Villa
    |    |-- 
    | 
    |-- ARCHIVED CASES
    |    |
    |    |-- Case 2123434 - Nina Machari
    |    |-- Case 2108410 - David Wood
    |    |-- Case 2333320 - Kristie Salavan
    |    |-- ...
   

   Or, if you are in a real-estate business you can create a sub-label for each of the properties. Like this:

     
   
    |-- Open Properties
    |    |
    |    |-- 1123 Judah Street, San Francisco CA, 94112
    |    |-- 30243 Geary Ave, San Francisco CA, 94144
    |    |-- 32255 Market Street, San Francisco CA, 94144
    |    |-- 
    | 
    |-- Closed Properties
    |    |
    |    |-- 4443d 34th Ave, San Francisco CA, 94112
    |    |-- 333 Height Street, San Francisco CA, 94144
    |    |-- 9923 Van Nesse, San Francisco CA, 94144
    |    |-- ...
   

Labels and Email Conversations

Using Gmail labels with email conversations is a little confusing. This is because Gmail will show a label next to the email conversation if at least one of the emails in the conversations is in the label. In order words, if you see a label tag next to a email conversation it DOES not mean that all emails in the conversations are inside that label.



More details about labels and how to use them can be found here.