How do I 'move to folder' in Gmail search results?

Question

When I'm looking at the list view in Gmail and select a checkbox of an email - up the top I have a drop-down button with a folder icon appears. Clicking on it gives a "move to" and a list of folders.

I get the same icon when I'm inside a single email.

But when I'm looking at search results - I don't get it. All I get is the 'label as' button.

If I click on a single email and am 'inside it' then I get the 'move to' button as well. But the search results don't have it.

My question is: How do I 'move to folder' in Gmail search results?

Answer 1

It seems to me that "Move to" is not available with search results because of the way it works.

In the places where it is available, using "Move to" removes the label that's being viewed (or "inbox") and adds the label that you "move" the messages to. It's a compromise for people who are too used to working with folders rather than labels.

When you've done a general search, you may have many disparate labels on the messages. "Move to" would remove all of them in favor of the new one chosen. I'll bet that most people don't want to do that (Principle of Least Astonishment) and so, you need to be explicit about the labels you want to add and remove from the "Label" menu.

(My weak memory seems to think that "Move to" used to be available everywhere, so now that it's not, it's likely that they got a ton of questions about it on their product forums and decided to change things a bit. I may be completely misremembering, however.)

Answer 2

Moving multiple messages to another folder from a list of search results is super easy and fast. You just need to do a couple more clicks than the "Move To" option elsewhere in Gmail:

1. Select the conversations you want to move from the search results page.
2. Apply the LABEL that you want to move the conversations to from the "Label" icon (now they're labeled, but not yet 'moved to' that new 'folder'.)
3. Click the "Archive" icon (in the same bar of icons as "Label" above the message list), and you're done.

Don't ask me why Gmail doesn't just put a "Move To" icon above its search results. It would save a lot of headaches! But the directions I just listed are exactly the same process that Gmail uses behind the scenes when you use "Move To" anywhere else in Gmail. Every time you move a message from, say, the Inbox to another so-called 'folder', all that happens is Gmail adds the desired label and removes the 'Inbox' label. "Archiving" simply removes a message from 'Inbox' without moving it to 'Trash'.

See others' posts above for a more thorough explanation of why/how this works. Gmail's 'folders' aren't actually folders--it all works with labels. Even the Inbox is just a label, the one that Gmail 'opens to' when signing in; it's the label that Gmail applies by default to incoming messages.

Answer 3

What I found today (2023) for this -

1. Search your emails
2. Select the emails needed to be moved
3. Right click, you will find 'move to' button as 4th option from bottom (above 'label as')
4. Move the emails.

That's it!

Cheers.

Answer 4

It works exactly as expected.

If you have zero emails selected you only see: check boxes, refresh and more buttons.

If you have one or more emails selected you see : check boxes, Archive, Spam, Delete, Move to inbox, Labels, and more buttons.

Until you have selected some emails the software doesn't give you options. Without selecting one or more emails commands such as Archive or move to folder don't make sense.

If you want to move all of the emails, the check box button is a pull sown which has several options including All.

Update:

Two situations are possible:

• when searching and working with the results. The software gives you a labels button. You can add or remove any number of labels to the selected messages.
• If you click on a label and then select one or more messages then you can get to the "Move to" button. That button strips off the current label, and then adds the specified label. If there is more than one label, then the label being removed is the active label. In fact they even give you a button to remove the active label without having to add a label.

Answer 5

^{The singular, message, implies the plural, messages, and vice-versa below}

What did Moving Mean?

Moving messages predates Gmail and was simpler to understand when a message could only exist in a single folder at a time. Moving a message was much the same as taking something from one place and moving it to another.

Folders in Gmail

In Gmail there is a visual depiction of folders, however they do not exist. Instead of folders, Gmail applies labels to messages, and those labels are displayed in the web app in a way that mimics folders. Whereas a message could only exist in one folder at any time, a message can have many Gmail labels simultaneously.

Moving in Gmail

1. In Gmail "moving" a message simply means adding a label.
2. The old label is not removed unless the message is being moved from the Inbox or Trash System labels in which case it is removed.

"Move to" Button

1. The Move to button is shown in the toolbar when selecting or opening messages from a single-label search, with the exception of All mail , Drafts , and Sent .
   
    
2. The Move to Inbox button is displayed when selecting or opening messages from a search of anything more than a single label and also for All mail , Drafts , and Sent
   
    
3. If the Move to button is not displayed in the toolbar (#2 above) the functionality can still be accessed via the option menu by right-clicking on the selection