Google’s rolling out some improvements to Gmail labels today, including drag-and-drop labeling, smart hiding of labels you use less often, and a location promotion to right below your inbox. Gmail product manager Todd Jackson told me that about 29% of users actually try out labels in Gmail at all, and these tweaks aim to increase that number.
Label Placement
Folder-loving users will now find labels right underneath their Inbox, Starred, Sent Mail, and Drafts items, where folders would typically go in a desktop email program like Outlook. Labels you use the most will show in the list, the rest will collapse into a drop-down menu. You can show or hide any label by clicking on the down arrow next to it and choosing the option from the list. (As someone who names my folders things like _FOLLOWUP to get them alphabetized at the top of my list, this smart ordering makes me happy as well as the people who never use labels.)
Here’s what it looks like.
Drag and Drop Conversations into Labels
Another slick web-as-desktop feature is the ability to drag and drop conversations into a label. Personally I prefer the keyboard shortcuts, but this is really nice for mouse-lovers.
What About Subfolders?
Given the popularity of the excellent Folders4Gmail Greasemonkey user script (included in my Better Gmail 2 extension), I had to ask Jackson about subfolders. He said that the Gmail team is committed to labels, but that they have been asked about and discussed subfolders before. In general they want to keep the interface as clean and simple as possible. He also said that user requests for subfolders have declined over time, which means users are getting more comfortable and having their needs fulfilled with straight-up labels. (Of course, Gmail’s IMAP implementation still creates subfolders for labels that contain slashes.)
I’m not sure what the fate of Folders4Gmail is in light of these new Gmail changes. Either way, you should see them in both your Google Apps and vanilla Gmail account by the end of the day.
Labels: drag and drop, hiding, and more [Official Gmail Blog]
11 Comments
Miguel Wickert- Pineiro
Gina,
Yeah, that’s a nice new little feature. I’ve got an Android related question for you. Have you considered creating a widget for your site? Mippin and android and me both put out solid widgets for Android. Don’t know if you’ve seen them yet? But they’re not to shabby. Thanks for shaving the video.
-Mig
augmentedfourth
I don’t have this on my Gmail yet. Is there a setting to “only show labels with unread”, or do you have to hide/show everything manually? Only showing unread would be fantastic, since labels are pretty much just filter-based alternate inboxes for me.
By the way, it looks like signing in here with OpenID means I don’t get to choose an icon in my profile settings. Maybe it’s because I’m using my blogspot URL as an OpenID and they don’t provide an icon?
Jonathan
I also don’t have this yet for one of my accounts. For another I do. They must be rolling things out incrementally.
Quasigrue
Looks like this has rolled out to my account…and I can’t just discount the idea that I might just be playing the ‘change is bad’ card…but honestly, I think I prefer how Folders4Gmail works with labels. I checked over at arendvr.com, they acknowledge F4G is broken and said to check back in a couple days.
I’m the same way with bookmarks, I’ll continuously obsess over organization and nesting everything in logical categories and sub-categories, and that’s carried over to Gmail.
That’s my happy place. 🙂
augmentedfourth
Well, I got it… no “always show labels with unread” (which, given how it works, would be better than “only”) like I would have liked. Everybody ask them for it! 🙂
J Wood
I wonder if fewer people were asking Google for subfolders because more people were using Folders4Gmail or Better Gmail.
I used subfolders specifically to keep my labels/interface uncluttered. Their attempt to keep the interface clean and simple has nearly tripled the number of labels I get to see on my screen now.
Ernesto Miquel
Where’s “all mail”? It’s gone now!!! At least the “G, A” shortcut still works, but I can’t believe they removed “all mail”.
Jason Krellner
On the Folders4Gmail website (in Userscripts.org), the author says he is going to publish an update that fixes this issue.
somecallmechief
One less reader. ttfn, smarterware.
lupatini
Would be testing this feature for the interface of the Wave? Is coming!
😉
winchester169
“He also said that user requests for subfolders have declined over time, which means users are getting more comfortable and having their needs fulfilled with straight-up labels.”
Of course not. Users found Folders4Gmail and have given up on the corporate conglomorate from fixing it. We found the fix ourselves. If F4G never came out the would now be flooded with requests. Silly beancounters don’t realize this.