Google Mail showing all labels in inbox; how to do like Hotmail folders?

Question

I want to display mails like Hotmail. Hotmail displays inbox items separately from other labels/folders. But in Gmail even after creating filter with labels all mails appear in inbox.

How do I make Gmail work like Hotmail? That is, all the filters should go to their respective folders and should not display in inbox.

For example, if i had created a label "map" and I have created a filter which should assign the "map" label to it if it contains certain chars in its domain name, then what I want is all map items to be inside "map" label and not in inbox. Maybe it is that labels are different form the concept of Hotmail's folder option.

So I want to ask here does Gmail have an option like Hotmail to automatically move the incoming mail to the specific folder according the filter we create?

Answer 1

Gmail labels are different than folders, in that a message (or conversation) can have multiple labels. Generally speaking a message can only exist in one "folder".

It's easy to simulate labels as folders, however. Just make sure a message only ever has one label. "Inbox" is a special label in Gmail, but it's still just a label.

To do this automatically, when you create your filter to move the message to the label(s) you want, also check "Skip the Inbox". Then new messages that meet your filter criteria will not be in the Inbox.