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20 Responses to “New feature suggestion to Gmail - tags”

1. By Josh on Nov 21, 2006

   So instead of creating a Label exclusively for that one email, you’re creating a tag for it instead? I don’t understand your reasons for wanting tags, since they serve the same function as Labels. I think you’re confusing Labels for something else because they replace the folders that other mail systems typically use.

   Additionally, what if you forget to tag the email? Doesn’t that leave you in the same situation where you didn’t Label it?

2. By admin on Nov 21, 2006

   Labels help a lot in organizing the emails and having one email in more than one Label. However tagging would give you even more freedom and flexibility in organizing your emails. One email could have as many tags as possible (this is true with Labels too but you need to create Labels and that creating more and more Labels is the problem), and you could add new tags instantly rather than creating new Labels everytime you need one.

   “Additionally, what if you forget to tag the email? Doesn’t that leave you in the same situation where you didn’t Label it?” You are right, but I guess the ease of adding tags would encourage you to keep the emails organized.

3. By Rosie on Mar 4, 2007

   I thank you for your comment.

4. By Jérôme Delacroix on Jan 18, 2008

   Agree. I am looking forward to being able to tag my Gmail messages.

5. By Balthasar Glättli on Mar 19, 2008

   Hi folks

   Your wish can be fullfilled when you switch to the new gmail interface that provides a unique UID for every message in the URL. Mix this together with, say, del.icio.us and alas, here you are.

   I made a screencast demo of my approach:
   http://www.glaettli.ch/download/gmailtags_demo.htm

   waiting for your comments!
   Balthasar

6. By Ades on Mar 20, 2008

   Balthasar, thanks, that’s a great workaround! But I wish gmail introduced tagging.

7. By Balthasar Glättli on Mar 20, 2008

   You are absolutely right, Ades, it still remains one of my most favorite built-in features for gmail. Because mixing a filter for tags and searching full text through the remaining emails still is not possible with my workaround!

   Balthasar

8. By kleppstuhl on Apr 21, 2008

   I think labels are absolutly equivalent to tags, because you can asign as much labels as you want to an email.

9. By Nathan on Jun 23, 2008

   Tags and labels are the same, but the workflow between gmail and delicious when it comes to adding tags is what’s different. I agree, the delicious worflow is much better.

10. By Charles Bronson on Jul 29, 2008

    Anyone who still doesn’t get that a tagging is *fundamentally* different to labelling, please leave the discussion now.

    Tagging absolutely required for gmail, as for all other other email clients. I don’t know who came up with the idea of placing stuff in a folder hierarchy some 20 years ago, but this must have been a complete moron.

    Also, your initial suggestion to place tagging option in a popup menu — NO GOOD! just a text box at the side of the mail text.

    Cheers
    Charles

11. By Ades on Jul 30, 2008

    Charles, good point! Agree.

12. By Nathan on Jul 30, 2008

    Charles… I think you’re confusing labels with folders, amongst other things.

13. By Charles Bronson on Jul 30, 2008

    Nathan, I don’t mess up labels and folders. I was just complaining because I am disgusted every day when accessing my IMAP. folders folders everywhere. Every approach where you need to create something through multiple mouseclicks and keystrokes (folders, labels) and only then be able to use what u produced, is crap. Tags are keystrokes only, create and use is the same task. Just type and separate by comma (possibly supported by suggestesions). So my point was tags = cool, everything else (incl folders, labels, categories, etc.) = no good.

    Cheers!

14. By brian on Jul 31, 2008

    How about allowing unlimited free-form tagging using a text field…. Then just give us a setting page where we can specify that only certain tags to also be treated as labels (shown on the left-hand menu, etc.)

    This way I could have 1000 tags, but specify that 10 of them are important enough to be treated as labels are today…

15. By Charles Bronson on Oct 1, 2008

    @brian - the top 10 tags are a natural consequence of usage and would evolve automatically, no need to specify them as special labels. would just need some tag cloud or some list of frequently used tags in the left hand pane.

16. By realthor on Oct 7, 2009

    Please take a look at how you can add tags in wordpress when writting a post. That should be the approach gmail should follow. I wonder if you can tag mails in wave.

    I am using everyday gamil for work purposes and even I label my main categories mails I miss tags, sometime someone sends a mail without subject, other times they sent an attachement with a corporate document name (12310-17.pdf) and I’d like to tag it. I have found an ugly way for this when I have emails i by all means need to tag = forwarding them to me with tags in the subject field. Then I’ll be able to search for them.

17. By Joshua Eckblad on Nov 10, 2009

    Why not just use an email assistant like Kwaga (www.kwaga.com), which automatically knows what an important email is about and what type of information is contained within, such as meeting & task requests, telephone numbers, new contacts, etc…

18. By Emily on Jan 9, 2010

    I agree. Tags should be available. Sometimes I know an email is about a certain topic, say audio books, but if the person didn’t specify either of those words in the email, how would I know what to search for?

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