What does the "Updates" label mean in Gmail?

Question

I just received an E-mail with the word "receipt" in it, which means it got automatically applied with the label "Purchase related" according to one of my filters. When I went to remove the label, I noticed that the E-mail also had the label "Updates" on it, which doesn't make any sense to me. That label isn't visible on the E-mail from the inbox, and additionally I don't have any labels named "Updates".

What is this label all about?

Answer 1

Gmail is rolling out a new feature for the inbox. They announced it in a May 2013 blog entry.

We get a lot of different types of email: messages from friends, social notifications, deals and offers, confirmations and receipts, and more. All of these emails can compete for our attention and make it harder to focus on the things we need to get done. Sometimes it feels like our inboxes are controlling us, rather than the other way around.

The big things is that the inbox now has Tabs

As of now you only have five tabs available:

Primary: Messages from friends and family and other messages that don’t appear in other tabs

Promotions: Deals, offers, and promotional emails

Social: Emails from social networks, media-sharing sites, online dating services, gaming sites, and other social websites

Updates: Notifications, confirmation emails, receipts, bills, and online statements

Forums: Email groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists

Answer 2

More information on this...

I see that when I press '+' right end of tabs on top (After Primary, Social, Promotions,Forums etc.) I see a list , in which the other tabs , which are visible are selected and the item in the list "Updates" is not selected.

Thus you can ignore "Updates" label or you can even allow those emails to be in a separate tab by selecting this list item.

Answer 3

Go to Gmail settings > Inbox > Under Categories, uncheck Updates > Click on save changes.

Issue resolved.