---
title: "Email labels"
description: "Colour-coded labels that filter the list in place. Nest them with a slash, tick them from the thread menu, and keep the filter in the URL."
url: "https://openemail.uk/features/labels"
---

[Reading & organising](https://openemail.uk/features.md#reading)

# Labels Sorted without moving a thing.

A label is a name you put on a conversation. Pick a colour, click it in the sidebar, and the list you are reading narrows to it.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[All features](https://openemail.uk/features.md)

In short

## What is an email label?

A folder holds a message in one place. A label marks it and leaves it where it is, so one thread can carry several at once and nothing has to be filed twice. Here a label is three things: a name, a colour and a filter.

How it works

## Filter the list you are in

Clicking a label narrows the folder you are reading instead of opening one of its own. The ids ride in the URL, so a filtered view survives a reload and can be sent to somebody else.

## A slash makes a group

Name a label Work/Clients and it shows as Clients under a Work group. A name in brackets is filed under Other, so the sidebar stays short however many you make.

## Fourteen colours that stay readable

The palette runs around the wheel, red through to pink with a slate at the end. Each swatch carries whichever ink reads better on it, so a chip holds its contrast on a light list and on a dark one.

What you get

## In the product today

Label from the thread

The right-click menu ticks labels on and off without leaving the list.

Parents and children

One slash in the name is the whole of nesting.

Fourteen colours

Ordered around the wheel, so labelling by hue does not run out on one side.

The filter is a link

Labels ride in the URL, so a narrowed list can be shared or bookmarked.

Good practice

## Getting the most out of it

1. 01
   
   Start with three
   
   A few labels you reach for beat twenty you have to think about.
2. 02
   
   Group with a slash
   
   Work/Clients and Work/Suppliers keep one row in the sidebar instead of five.
3. 03
   
   Give colour a job
   
   Hue for urgency or for who owns it, never for the project name, and the list reads at a glance.

Questions

## Asked often

Keep going

## Works well with

Full-text search

Forgiving words and operators like from: and has:, inside the folder you are reading.

Rules you write yourself

Your own conditions, and what should happen to anything that matches them.

Thread notes

Keep a private note attached to a thread.

Start

## Your domain, your mail.

Point a domain at OpenEmail and read it in a mailbox built around it. The free plan covers one domain.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[Read the reference](https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/reading/labels.md)