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I was using Gmail and needed to organize something into a category (that would show on for Configuring my Inbox) which I wanted to make specifically for it. Although I noticed that it only allows me to configure my inbox with categories such as Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. Does anyone know how to make a brand new category and put it as a tab on my Gmail Inbox?

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5 Answers 5

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The categories are created by Google and not user defined. You can create labels and attach them to emails but what you're asking is not possible

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    2022 is it possible yet? I just wanna move more things out of sight without deleting/archiving them and without overloading a crowded "promotions"
    – Wassadamo
    Apr 8, 2022 at 2:34
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    @Wassadamo, nope still no user defined categories as tabs possible in 2022. Only through labeling.
    – DaReal
    Jun 26, 2022 at 17:52
  • @DaReal any tips on using labels to effectively sort email? I'd like to use labels more as "directories" than "tags." By which I mean browse, organize like parent-child, and view all emails with label XYZ with one click (all I see is some filter menu I have to google how to use every time). The "Social" and "Promotions" categories aren't great for this either.
    – Wassadamo
    Jun 27, 2022 at 2:07
  • If I remember correctly they were available before but they were removed. While I think they could be misused somehow, it's also possible it's a system feature of internal classification of email.
    – Antti Rytsölä
    Dec 13, 2022 at 9:31
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A feature that's not everyone knows about Gmail is the subaddressing feature. It's possible to add a +TEXT at the end of your email address, like [email protected] (where "TEXT" can be whatever you want, alphanumeric and - _ ); this feature is very powerful and can help you segment your email, especially newsletters or services (like the user in the previous answer do, using different accounts).

After you've used some subaddressed email addresses, it's simple to label it with filtering function of Gmail.

The only downside is that some sites doesn't accept email addresses with "+" character, so it's possible to use the second Gmail trick: the period. It's possible to add as many periods in the mail address (not two in sequence, and not at the end or at the beginning), so if your email i s [email protected] it's possible to even delete the period, or add another one or two, like [email protected].

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One solution is to create labels, and then use multiple inboxes from the labs section of settings.

You can then have sections of your inbox that only show messages with that label.

This solution does allow you to control the logic used to assign the messages to the label. You can even manually assign messages if it is impossible to use a filter to do so.

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On the left hand panel, you need to "Create a New Label" and add the name of what you would like your new category to be. Once you've done that, you can select the emails you would like and apply that label to them.

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I found a different solution. I created more gmail accounts with names to match my requirements. Like "[email protected]" I registered this with my banks and credit cards. Then another like "[email protected]" Used it with all my visa applications and travel plans. Works out just fine.

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