Your messages are classified into categories such as Promotions, Social and Updates. You can choose to use categories as inbox tabs, and as labels. These categories make it easy to focus on messages that are important to you and read messages of the same type all at once.
If you’re using a custom inbox style like Priority Inbox, you won’t see tabs until you turn them on. Here’s how:
- Open Gmail.
- Click the gear icon
in the upper right, then select Configure inbox.
- Check the boxes of the tabs you want to see.
- Click Save.
If you don’t want to use this type of inbox, follow these directions to change your inbox style.
Choose your tabs
Your messages are automatically categorized into the following optional tabs:
| |
Messages from friends and family, as well as any other messages that don’t appear in other tabs. |
| |
Your deals, offers, and other promotional emails. |
| |
Messages from social networks, media-sharing sites, online dating services, gaming platforms, and other social websites. |
| |
Notifications such as confirmations, receipts, bills, and statements. |
| |
Messages from online groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists. |
Show or hide tabs
- Open Gmail.
- Click the + icon to the right of your tabs.
- Use the checkboxes to show or hide each tab.
- Click Save.
If you hide a tab, messages in that category will appear in your Primary tab instead.
More options
Show tabs again after you disabled them
If you want to use tabs again, follow these directions:
- Open Gmail.
- Click the gear icon
- Check the boxes of the tabs you want to see.
- Click Save.
New messages in category tabs
When you receive new mail, you’ll see an indicator in each tab that tells you how many new messages you’ve received since you last checked that tab. You’ll also see a few of the recent senders listed below the category name. You can see what's new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read.
Example
If you looked at your Promotions tab yesterday and then received eight promotional emails, you’ll see “8 new” next to the word “Promotions” when you check your Gmail today.
Unread count
The number next to Inbox on the left side of your Gmail tells you how many unread messages are in your Primary tab.
Move messages between tabs
If you see a message in your inbox that you want in a different tab, all you have to do is drag and drop it into the other tab. Another way to do this is to right-click a message while viewing your inbox.
After you move a message to a different tab, a message above your inbox will ask if you want to undo that action or choose to always put messages from that sender in the tab you chose.
Starred messages
Messages you mark with a star will also appear in your Primary tab so they are easier to keep track of.
Tip
Stars are a great way to keep track of messages you want to follow up on later. Unstar the message when you’re done. Learn more about starred messages.
If you don’t want to include starred messages in Primary, click here.
- Open Gmail.
- Click the + icon to the right of your tabs.
- Uncheck the box next to “Include starred in Primary”.
- Click Save.
Category labels
Whether you use tabs or not, all messages are automatically sorted into one of the five different categories. These categories can be used as automatic labels.
Here are a few things you can do with category labels:
View all messages in a category, including archived messages
When a message is archived, it moves out of your inbox and stays in “All Mail” and any other labels applied to it. This means that messages you archive will no longer be visible in your tabs.
To view all messages in a category, follow these steps:
- Open Gmail.
- Hover over your label list on the left side of your Gmail (where “Sent Mail” and “Drafts” are listed).
- Click More
at the bottom of your label list (you may need to scroll down).
- Find
Categories and expand the list using the arrow to the left.
- Click a category name.
By default, category labels are not visible on each message, but you can choose to show them in your message list. Category labels still won’t be visible when viewing your inbox tabs, but you might find this feature useful when searching or if you turned off tabs.
- Open Gmail.
- Hover over your label list on the left side of your Gmail (where “Sent Mail” and “Drafts” are listed).
- Click More
- Find
- Hover over a category name, such as Social, and click the down-arrow icon
that appears to the right of the name.
- Find the option “In message list” and choose Show.
From this menu you can also change the label color or hide the category in your label list.
To search for messages within a category use the search operator category: followed by a category name.
Example: category:updates
Meaning: All messages in the Updates category.
Example: category:social Mindy
Meaning: Messages in the Social category that include “Mindy.”
You can combine the category search operator with other search operators. Learn more about advanced search.