Blogs on Gmail and Google Accounts

Often we see threads in the Gmail Help Community where we are asked to explain the difference between the Category labels and the Inbox category tabs in Gmail. We begin the discussion by visually highlighting what we mean by the Inbox category tabs and the Category labels and where they are located. Now, we are going to take a look at the differences, with examples. So, let's begin. Commonly, if we click on one of the Category labels, say Promotions, we see a list of messages that Gmail internally categorizes as such, based on various signals such as how they are marked up, what they contain, the domain they are sent from, etc.  As shown in the screenshot above, it also generates a search query for our better understanding - category:promotions  and it is important to remember this little detail. Similarly, when we click on the Promotions tab in Gmail inbox, it also shows a list of messages, in fact, the same set of messages in this case. So, where's the difference? To demonstr

I have always been interested in the Important label since I first saw it in Gmail. I found the concept new, was fascinated with how Gmail could detect and mark emails as important for me and was eager to see how accurate such detection could be. Over the years, I have managed to acquire some knowledge related to Gmail's Important label and a blog article seems like the perfect place to put all my learnings together including answering some of the FAQs associated with it, such as Where can I find the settings for the Gmail Important label? What do the options mean? What are the reasons for which emails can be marked as important? How can I turn this feature off or how to actually get Gmail to stop marking my emails as important? Gmail tends to rely on their algorithms for (most if not all of) their message detections and alerts related to it and the marking of messages as important is no exception.  The "Important" label can be seen in the Gmail left pan

A few days ago, a peer of mine in the Gmail and Google Accounts help communities, shared with me a link to a thread where a user happened to mention seeing the Update category label in his messages even after he has deselected the categories in his default Gmail layout from the  Inbox tab under Gmail settings . The user also included screenshots which looked like the ones below: Given how most of our Gmail is set up, this appeared odd. The categories are not labels; so, how could they appear as such? Since the categories appeared as labels, it was apparent that the reason for this uncommon behavior should lie inside the Labels tab under Gmail settings . In there, scrolling down below the System labels section, under Categories, it appeared as seen below, and the highlighted section resolved the mystery. The click to show/hide in message list options, set to show, caused this unusual display of categories as labels in the user's inbox. When I cli

Labels are among the unique features of Gmail. So, while reading through the Gmail Help article on Labels,  Create labels to organize Gmail , I was a bit surprised when I realized that it does not contain instructions on how to change the color of the labels.  When a label is created in Gmail, they are assigned a default color which is somewhat dark grayish. To change the default color, head over to the left panel section of the Gmail page where the labels are listed, locate the label, and hover the mouse pointer over it.  When you do that, you will notice a 3-dot (overflow/more menu) icon appear on the right side. Click on it to see a list of label-related actions. Click on the first option that reads Label color to see a palette of preset combinations. Click on any to select and apply that combination of text and background color to that label. If you do not fancy any of the preset color combinations of the palette, or if you have exhausted them owing t