To organize e-mail in your Gmail account, instead of moving the mail into folders you can label messages with custom category names. These will display next to the message subjects, allowing you to define certain messages as "Business", "Personal", or whatever.

One advantage to labels over folders is that you can apply multiple labels to a single e-mail message, whereas you would have to copy a mail message to multiple folders.

First, create your labels

1. In the left column on the Gmail page, in the "Labels" box, click the "Edit labels" button.

2. The "Settings - Labels" page will appear. Type in a label and press "Create".

3. You can create more labels as desired by repeating step 2.

Note that you can click on a label and then the "rename" link to change its name, or the "remove" link to delete a label.

To label a message or messages

1. Return to the "Inbox" or your desired folder.

2. Check a message or group of messages.

3. Click on the "More actions" pull-down and select your label name underneath "Apply label".

Later, if desired. you can repeat steps 1-3 to re-label your messages, or select "Remove label" to remove a label from your e-mail.

To find all labeled messages

1. Just click the label name inside the "Labels" box on the left column of the Gmail page.

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