How to Create Labels in Gmail: Visual Step-by-Step

If your inbox has turned into a wall of unread school emails, activity reminders, and volunteer sign-ups, labels are the fastest way to get things under control. Gmail labels work like colored tags you can attach to any message, and unlike folders, a single email can carry as many labels as you want.

This article is part of our complete guide to Gmail filters for parents, which covers the full system from labels to automated sorting. Here, we'll focus on the label side: how to create them, organize them, and build a structure that actually holds up through a school year.

How to create a label on desktop

There are three ways to create a label in Gmail on your computer. Pick whichever fits what you're doing at the moment.

From the sidebar

This is the quickest method if you're staring at your inbox and realize you need a new label.

1. Open Gmail in your browser.
2. Scroll down the left sidebar until you see More. Click it to expand.
3. Click + Create new label at the bottom of the label list.
4. Type the label name (for example, School or Action Required).
5. If you want this to be a sub-label, check Nest label under and select the parent label from the dropdown.
6. Click Create.

Your new label appears in the sidebar immediately. You can now drag emails onto it or apply it from the label menu.

From settings

Better for setting up multiple labels in one sitting, like when you're building out a whole organizational system.

1. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of Gmail.
2. Select See all settings.
3. Click the Labels tab.
4. Scroll down past the system labels (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, etc.) until you reach the bottom.
5. Click Create new label.
6. Enter the name, optionally nest it, and click Create.

The labels tab also lets you control which labels show or hide in your sidebar and message list, which is useful once you have more than a handful.

While viewing an email

Sometimes you're reading a message and think, I need a label for this. You don't have to leave the email.

1. Open the email you want to label.
2. Click the Labels icon in the toolbar (it looks like a small tag).
3. In the dropdown, type the name of your new label in the search box at the top.
4. When Gmail shows Create new, click it.
5. Name the label and click Create.
6. The label is applied to that email automatically.

This is the method you'll probably use most often day-to-day, since it lets you create and apply in one step.

How to create a label on Android

The Gmail Android app supports full label creation, unlike the iOS app.

1. Open the Gmail app on your Android phone.
2. Open any email (you need to be inside a message).
3. Tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.
4. Tap Change labels.
5. Tap + Create new at the bottom of the label list.
6. Type the label name and tap Done or OK.
7. Check the box next to your new label to apply it to the current email, then tap OK.

You can also create labels through the Android app's settings:

1. Tap the hamburger menu (three lines, top-left).
2. Scroll down and tap Settings.
3. Tap your email account.
4. Tap Labels.
5. Tap Create new and enter the name.

One thing to know: nesting labels (creating sub-labels) isn't available on Android. If you need a nested structure, set it up on desktop first. Android will display and respect the hierarchy, it just can't create it.

How to create a label on iPhone or iPad

Here's the unfortunate truth: the Gmail iOS app does not support creating labels. You can apply existing labels to emails, but you can't make new ones from the app.

Your options:

• Safari workaround: Open mail.google.com in Safari, tap the share button, and select Request Desktop Website. Then follow the desktop steps above.
• Use desktop: If you're near a computer, it takes 30 seconds to create labels there. They'll sync to your phone immediately.

Once a label exists, you can use it freely in the iOS app. The limitation is only around creating new labels.

How to create nested labels (sub-labels)

Nested labels are what turn a flat list of tags into an actual organizational system. Instead of having Soccer, Piano, and School Newsletter all at the same level, you can group them.

On desktop:

1. Right-click any existing label in the sidebar.
2. Select Add sublabel.
3. Enter the name for the child label.
4. Click Create.

Or during the normal label creation flow:

1. Click + Create new label in the sidebar.
2. Check Nest label under.
3. Select the parent label from the dropdown.
4. Click Create.

Gmail displays nested labels with an expand/collapse arrow in the sidebar:

School
  ├── Action Required
  ├── Calendar/Events
  ├── Newsletters
  └── Report Cards
Activities
  ├── Soccer
  └── Piano

You can nest labels up to three or four levels deep, though going beyond two levels usually creates more confusion than clarity. Stick to parent and one level of children for most situations.

One thing that catches people off guard: applying a parent label does not automatically apply the child labels, and vice versa. School and School/Action Required are completely independent labels. An email labeled School/Action Required won't show up when you click School unless you also applied the parent label separately.

A label system that works for parents

Most parents start with too many labels, get overwhelmed, and abandon the whole system. Here's a structure that balances organization with actual usability.

The recommended setup

School
  ├── Action Required
  ├── Calendar/Events
  ├── Newsletters
  └── Report Cards
Activities
  ├── Soccer
  └── Piano
Medical
Family

That's it. Eight labels, organized into a hierarchy you can scan in two seconds.

School covers everything from your kids' schools. The sub-labels separate things you need to act on (permission slips, forms, conference sign-ups) from things you need to reference (event dates, report cards) and things you might read later (newsletters).

Activities gets one sub-label per extracurricular. If your kid does six activities, you'll have six sub-labels. That's fine. Activities change by season, so you can add and delete labels as schedules shift.

Medical is a single flat label for doctor's appointments, insurance correspondence, and prescription reminders. Sub-labels are overkill here unless you're managing complex medical needs.

Family catches the personal stuff that isn't school or activities: family event planning, shared calendar invites, grandparent communication.

Why this structure works

The key is that Action Required sits at the top of the School hierarchy. When you check your inbox, that's the label that tells you what needs a response today. Everything else is reference material or read-later content.

If you have multiple kids in different schools, you can extend the hierarchy:

School
  ├── [Kid 1's Name]
  │     ├── Action Required
  │     └── Calendar
  ├── [Kid 2's Name]
  │     ├── Action Required
  │     └── Calendar
  └── Newsletters

But honestly, most parents find that one Action Required label for all kids is enough. You know which kid the permission slip is for when you read the email.

Color-coding labels for visual priority

Gmail lets you assign colors to labels, and this is one of those small features that makes a bigger difference than you'd expect. When you scan your inbox, colored labels jump out before you even read the subject line.

To color a label:

1. Hover over the label name in the left sidebar.
2. Click the three dots that appear.
3. Select Label color.
4. Pick a color from the grid, or click Add custom color for more options.

Which colors to use

Don't rainbow your inbox. Pick two or three colors and use them consistently.

• Red for Action Required. Anything you need to respond to gets the color that naturally signals urgency. Red labels catch your eye immediately in a list of gray and white.
• Blue for Calendar/Events. Date-sensitive information that you need to reference but doesn't require action. Blue feels informational without feeling urgent.
• Green for Newsletters and reference material. Content you'll read when you have time. Green signals all clear, no rush.

Everything else can stay the default gray. Color only works as a signal when most labels don't have it. If every label is a different color, none of them stand out.

Color	Use for	Why it works
Red	Action Required	Signals urgency, hard to miss
Blue	Calendar/Events	Informational, calm
Green	Newsletters, reference	Low priority, read later
Gray (default)	Everything else	Keeps the focus on colored labels

Labels vs categories vs tabs in Gmail

Gmail has three different organizational features, and they overlap in confusing ways. Here's the breakdown.

Labels are what we've been talking about. You create them, you apply them manually or through filters, and they show up in your sidebar. You control everything about them.

Categories are Google's automatic sorting. Gmail analyzes incoming mail and assigns categories like Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. You can't create new categories or control the sorting logic. They're either on or off.

Tabs are the visual representation of categories. When you enable tabs (Settings > Inbox > Inbox type: Default), Gmail puts Social, Promotions, and other category emails into separate tabs at the top of your inbox. Disable tabs and those category emails just land in your primary inbox.

Here's what matters for parents: school emails usually land in Updates or Primary. The categorization is inconsistent. You might get a newsletter in Promotions one week and Updates the next. That's why labels and filters are more reliable for school email management — you define the rules, not Google's algorithm.

You can use labels and categories at the same time. They don't interfere with each other. But if you're building a label system like the one above, you might want to disable tabs entirely (Settings > Inbox > select Default inbox) so everything lands in one stream. Then let your labels and filters do the sorting.

A few things worth knowing

Labels are free and unlimited. Google doesn't cap how many you can create. That said, having 50 labels defeats the purpose. Aim for under 15.

Labels sync across all devices. Create a label on your laptop and it shows up on your phone within seconds. Colors sync too.

You can search within a label. Type label:school in the Gmail search bar to see everything with that label. Works with nested labels too: label:school-action-required.

Labels and filters pair naturally. Once you've created your labels, you can set up filters to apply them automatically. A filter that labels every email from your school's domain as School saves you from manual sorting entirely.

Applying a label doesn't move the email. This trips up people who are used to Outlook folders. Labeling an email keeps it in your inbox. If you want it out of the inbox, you need to archive it after labeling (or set your filter to skip the inbox).

Stop sorting, start reading

A well-built label system can take 20 minutes of inbox chaos and turn it into a scannable, color-coded list of what matters. But even the best label system requires you to maintain it — creating new labels each season, updating filters when schools change their email addresses, and remembering to check each label regularly.

EmailSnapshot takes a different approach. Instead of asking you to build and maintain a sorting system, it reads your school and activity emails and pulls the important details — dates, deadlines, action items — into a single daily digest. No labels to manage, no filters to update, no sidebar to scroll through.

If you've read this far and thought, This is a lot of work just to keep up with school emails, you're not wrong. Labels are a solid tool for people who like organizing. But if you'd rather skip straight to the information that matters, give EmailSnapshot a try.

Try EmailSnapshot Free