I'm confused about the Move to and Labels feature in Gmail.
What's the difference between the two?
Why does the Move to option not appear sometimes?
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Sign up to join this communityIt seems as though there are 3 modes when viewing Gmail messages:
1. Mailbox Mode:
#inbox
, #starred
, etc.2. Label Mode:
#label/[my-label]
.3. Search Mode:
#search/[my-query]
.Note that when you drag a message you can drop it on: Inbox, Starred, Spam, Trash, or one of your labels. If you are in search mode and drag a label onto a Mailbox, it will say Label, but it will actually Move the message.
You will notice that modes 1 and 2 behave almost exactly the same. When you click through to a message from a list, it will show the exact same buttons the list had.
Notice how Move to is only available when the concept of a folder is used. For example, the Inbox acts as a folder since a message can't be both in the Inbox and Spam (or Trash). Similarly, when you press on a label to go into Label Mode, it treats the label as if it were a folder (even though it may be tagged with multiple labels).
When you Move a message it will remove the label/folder you are currently viewing from the message and apply a new one. For example, say a message is marked as label-a
, label-b
, and label-c
. Now you click on label-b
on the left to enter Label Mode. Next, you move the message to label-d
. What happens is label-b
is removed and label-d
is added. The other labels remain on the message. The message will now be labeled: label-a
, label-c
, label-d
.
Similarly, if a message is in the Inbox and you Move it to the Trash, it will be removed from the Inbox and moved to the Trash.
When you use the Label feature, you simply choose which labels to add or remove. Nothing will be done automatically for you.
Everthing in gmail is managed by labels, Inbox
and Trash
are also labels
Move To XYZ
means remove Inbox
label and apply label XYZ
(if it was in Inbox)
While if you label it as XYZ
then one more label XYZ
will be added to that email resulting two labels Inbox
,XYZ
on your email
Inbox
and Trash
can better be described as folders since a message can't be in both the Inbox
and Trash
.
Move To XYZ
will remove Inbox
, it would be much easier to understand. However, if the message is also tagged as ABC
, and you view the ABC
tag, when you press Move To XYZ
, it will actually remain in the Inbox, and only the ABC
tag will be removed.
Simply put:
All mail state/attributes, including [Inbox], [Trash], etc, can be considered as Labels.
However, Mutual Exclusivity must be maintained for these labels: [Inbox], [Sent Mail], [Drafts] and [Spam] [Trash] i.e. these labels cannot coexist; a mail may only have a maximum of one label out of these.
How to interpret:
i.e. All mail excludes Trash, Spam, etc.
In More Simple terms: Label will simply add the Label but leave the message where it is. Move to will Add the label AND then archive the message.
Inbox
.