Google labels are not folders

Being used to a full client like Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird most people are used to archiving e-mail by moving it to a folder. It then disappears from the inbox, thus keeping it tidy and can later be found in a folder.

Since Gmail is using labels instead of folders this works differently. When mail is labeled it stays in your inbox. Only when you archive it is removed from your inbox. However if you label it first and then archive it, it will also be sitting under the label. If you use Gmail with a full client and move an e-mail to a folder in a mail client, it is in fact labeled and archived all at the same time.

Good thing about this is that it allows you to categorize (label) and archive independently from each other. Therefore you can set up rules (filters in Gmail) to label mail, but only archive it when you handled it. It also allows you to find mail on a specific topic in the inbox and archive alike by clicking a label.

It is quite a smart thing if you think about it. I have decided to use the Google webmail only for work e-mail for a while, to see if that would work well when you get lots of e-mail. At least it has brought me to see the logic behind it, the next weeks I will find out if I find it useful too.