How to remove the “Sent Mail” label from Gmail messages
May 3, 2012 § 6 Comments
In Gmail, there is only a single copy of every message. All messages live in one place: “All Mail.” Messages can have different labels attached to them. Labels are different from folders, because a single message can have multiple labels attached to it. This allows a single copy of a message to VIRTUALLY show up in many different places. Labels are one of the most powerful features of Gmail. However, effective use of labels sometimes requires a new approach to email organization, and if you happen to be a new user coming to Gmail from another system that uses folders, it might be too much of a hassle to switch your workflow (or your way of thinking). The good news is that you can make Gmail work the way you want.
The “Inbox” is actually a label that is attached to all new messages that arrive in “All Mail.” When you “archive” a message, you are removing the “Inbox” label. The message disappears from the Inbox view, but it still exists in All Mail.
Labels can function like folders when you only have a single label attached to a message. So for example, if I move a message from the Inbox to the Jobs “folder,” what I am actually doing is removing the Inbox label and attaching the Jobs label.
Sent Mail is different. It is NOT a label. It’s actually a search function. When you click on Sent Mail, Gmail searches through the All Mail folder and displays a list of all messages that have your own email address in the From: field.
This works fine for most people, but sometimes you want more control over your Sent Mail, and this is where people run into problems. Unlike the Inbox label, it is not possible to remove the “Sent Mail” label from a message because as I mentioned previously, “Sent Mail” is not a label. It’s a search function that spits out a list of messages.
If you want total control over Sent Mail, the solution is simple: You will first hide the default Sent Mail, create your own “_My Sent Mail” label, and then create a custom filter to add this new label to all messages you send.
Here are the steps (all of these are done on your computer in the Gmail web interface):
- Open the Settings by clicking on the Gear (top right of the page)
- Click the “Labels” tab
- Under System Labels, find “Sent Mail.” Click “hide”. Uncheck “Show in IMAP”
- Scroll down and click the button called “Create new label”
- Call it “_My Sent Mail” (without the quotes) or something similar. Using an underscore forces this label to appear above any other labels that you might have already created. This will make it convenient to find the label in your long list of labels. Make sure that for this new label, “show” is selected and that “Show in IMAP” is selected.
- Click on the Filters tab.
- At the bottom, click “Create a new filter”
- In the From field, enter your Gmail address
- Click “Create filter with this search”
- Next, check the box next to “Apply the label” and choose “_My Sent Mail” as the label to apply
- OPTIONAL: You can also check the box “Also apply filter to xxx matching conversations” if you want these pre-existing conversations to also get the new label. You probably want to do this.
- Click “Create filter”
- Now send some test emails to make sure everything works. Try sending an email from the Gmail website and see if it shows up in _My Sent Mail on both the web interface. If you have an iPhone, check it there too. Also try sending an email from your iPhone and make sure it shows up in the correct place.
I tested this method with my iPad and my Gmail account and everything seems to work. You should be able to do this with multiple Gmail accounts too. Good luck!
Thanks for this trick !
Thank you for your helpful tip. The problem is though, the original Sent Mail label still appears under the “more” button at the bottom of the left-side panel. So it doesn’t really disappear from the Gmail.
Anyway, I guess this is as close as I’m gonna get to deleting an email from sent items while still keeping it in a separate folder. Thanks again
One more thing…In the newly-created “_My Sent Mail” folder, both the sent emails and drafted ones appear. Is there anyway to skip the drafted messages in this folder?
Not sure about skipping the drafted messages. Let me know if you figure this one out.
I’m not sure that the ‘Sent’ label doesn’t exist: if you manage your Gmail account with any IMAP client, you can move a message from ‘Sent folder’ to any other ‘folder’, and once you access Gmail from a browser, you will not see anymore the message in the Sent Items section.
Nice article, Saqib. Didn’t know Sent Items worked that way, and that is why I actually ended up at your article. I wanted to do the reverse and add the “sent mail” label to a bunch of messages I imported from another account via IMAP. Now I know Sent Mail isn’t a label at all and looks at the from: address, and in my case the from: address is from the ~old~ email account, I’ll never be able to get it to look exactly how I want it to. Unless you know of any other workarounds for this ?. Also what do you make of Bruno’s comment regarding the sent folder ?