Labels - "to try or not to try?"
 

.... that is the question. :)

I have many folders setup and they are in an order that I want to keep.
If I try labels:

1. Will the labels replace my folders in the same order as my existing folders?
2. If I decide to revert to folders, will my folders revert to the same folders in the same location as original?
3. If I revert to folders, what happens to items that I have assigned more than one label to?

Thanks to anyone that can enlighten me. :)

I just answered your other post about moving searches up to the top, and my method works best in labels mode. Here are answers to your new questions:

• You can switch at any time between labels and folders. This is an instantaneous switch. If you switch to labels then back to folders without doing anything else, everything will be identical to the original setup (same folders and message locations).
• When you switch to labels, your previous folder names will now be label names.The order is identical.
• The only folder which does not keep it's name is Archive. In that position you will find the All mail label when in label mode. Messages which were in the Archive folder will have no labels in label mode, since archiving a message removes all of it's labels.
• If you have multiple labels applied to a message, it will appear in the corresponding folders in folder mode.
• If you have a message copied to multiple folders, the corresponding labels will be active in label mode.
• In label mode, Inbox is a valid label. But the other special folders (in folder mode) Archive, Drafts, Sent, Snoozed, Spam, Templates, and Trash are not labels. These special folders seem to have tags independent from labels.

I think that answers your questions and give you some additional insight into how labels work. I use label mode and like it.

Bill

Thanks Bill.
Good to know that I can swap between them while I try out Labels without losing my folder structure. :)

Well I am trying out labels.
All good so far.

One thing I noticed that is interesting is that one can assign a label in the compose screen.
This effectively brings back the file-into functionality that the very old interface had in the compose screen but was lost when the UI changed some years ago.

In order to work around this loss I have been creating "personalities" that have a file-in-specific-folder function.
This was a pain because I would create a new personality for each new job (ie folder) where I wanted to file my emails - and use the dropdown in the from field to select the correct personality. This resulted in many personalities to manage and was a disincentive to create such personalities and auto filing system.
Now I can just add the appropriate label during composition.:)
That's a bonus.

Labels in Conversation Mode
 

Using Labels in Conversation mode is confusing - possibly even misleading.

When in conversation mode, the applicable labels will be listed under the single subject header at the top of the conversation.

When you go to the individual emails inside the conversation, there are no lables shwon on each email.
So one cannot tell what labels are applying to individual emails.

I thought, well, does this mean that the labels listed at the top of the conversation are being applied globally to each email in the thread?
The answer is no.
Some emails in the thread might have no labels assigned.

This behaviour is different to folders, where each email in a conversation would show which folder it was in. With this info, re-filing into a correct folder could be carried out.
This cannot be done with labels because one cannot see the label (if any) that is applied to each email in a conversation thread.

This is a problem for me.

Later, when I want to archive emails by label (in lieu of using folders) I might miss some emails in a thread because I couldn't see that I needed to re-label them.

Anyone else have this problem and worked out how to solve this?

Am I understanding the "All Mail" label correctly? Under this label is every email in my account? When I go to the Labels screen there is a Label called "Archive" which has a few hundred messages, but I can see no way to display just those messages. Apparently they lack a label. But am I correct in that those messages under the label "Archive" will be included in a display of "All Mail"? Even if I can't immediately locate the "Archive" messages?

Yes, I believe this is the case.

When I swap from Folders to Labels, I can see the emails that where in Archive are now listed under All Mail in Labels mode.

When I swap from Folders to Labels, I do sometimes see some emails with the label "Archive", but this label disappears after a refresh such as by selecting a different folder. After which the label "Archive" no longer appears on any emails. But I can see the emails that where in my Archive folder when I view All Mail in label mode.

Details of All mail
 

Yes, in general you are correct. Here are some more details which may be helpful while you are in label mode:

• Because you can switch back and forth between Folder and Label modes and searches work similarly in both modes, you can see all messages in the Archive folder (which have no label) using this search string:
  in:archive
  You can combine this with other search terms. So to find all mentions of the first moon landing in your Archive folder, use this search string:
  in:archive "apollo 11"
• As gardenweed points out, in conversation mode some messages in a conversation can have no label while others have one or more labels. So the searches shown above may return some conversations with one or more labels indicated, even though at least one message in that conversation was archived (having no label).
• I use the following method of adding an UNREAD search inside the All mail icon. This will find any unread message in any folder! Since I have many messages auto-delivered or auto-filed into folders (same as adding labels), this allows me to rapidly discover all recent unread messages anywhere. I use the j/k keyboard shortcut to move between these messages, which become read and so disappear after they are read:
  https://www.emaildiscussions.com/sho...48&postcount=2
• The Spam and Trash folders are by default hidden from searches, and messages in those folders will not show up in All mail.
• Sent and Drafts are tags which are not labels. Messages with those tags are displayed with special tags, and the Sent tag looks like a label. But it isn't really a label. All mail will show all Sent and Drafts messages. Templates are really drafts in a special location, so template messages show up in All mail as Drafts.
• Snoozed messages show up in All mail with an icon which looks like an old-style alarm clock with two bells. The snoozed date is shown rather than the original sent date.
• By the way, search across all folders is orders of magnitude faster than a few months ago. So don't be afraid of using a complex search if you can't easily find a message in a particular folder/label.

So All mail shows all messages except messages in:

• Spam
• Trash

Bill

Even worse than just that - you can't tell which emails have which label or even which ones don't have a label!