Sort conversations with labels

A label says what a conversation is about: Invoices, Quotes, Parents. A conversation can carry several, and every member of the mailbox sees them.

What a label is, depending on the mailbox

In Trupeo, labels work the same way on every mailbox. What sits behind them depends on where the mailbox lives:

• Gmail: they are your Gmail labels. A label put on in Trupeo is put on in Gmail, on every email of the conversation, and the other way round.
• Outlook and Microsoft 365: they are your Outlook categories. See Outlook categories as labels. One exception: a Microsoft 365 mailbox you reach through your own account (a shared mailbox, or one delegated to you). Its Outlook categories do not reach Trupeo, so its labels live in Trupeo only, where the whole team sees them, and nothing is written to the mailbox in Outlook. See Microsoft 365 shared mailbox or alias.
• IMAP: neither labels nor categories exist on these servers, so Trupeo keeps the labels itself. It also writes them on your emails as tags that Thunderbird can show: see See your Trupeo labels in Thunderbird.

A label never moves an email. To file emails in a folder, on IMAP and Outlook, see File emails in folders.

Where you see them

• In the column on the left. Under the views, the “Labels” section carries the number of the mailbox’s labels in brackets. On an IMAP or Outlook mailbox the section is called “Folders”: your folders come first, then your labels, and the number counts them together. It starts folded: click its title to unfold it, and Trupeo remembers your choice. Unfolded, it shows each label with its small color square and, when there are many, the first seven followed by “Show all (14)”. A label with a / in its name sits, indented, under another one (Invoices/2026 under Invoices), except on Outlook, where categories do not nest. Click a label to list the emails filed under exactly that label (not under its nested labels). If there are none, Trupeo shows “No email under this label.” On a phone, the section is under “More”.
• In the list. A row shows one label, with its name, and +1 (or more) when the email carries others. On Gmail, the label is drawn as Gmail draws it, on its color; elsewhere, with its color square.
• In the open email. Under the subject, at the end of the line that says who is on it, every label it carries. On a phone, they have a line of their own, just below it.

Put a label on an email, or take it off

Open the email. At the end of the line under the subject, click “Label” (or its labels when it already has some). On a phone, the same choice is on the line just below, and in the ”⋯” menu under “Labels…”. A list opens:

• tick a label to put it on, untick it to take it off;
• type in “Find or create a label” to narrow the list;
• if no label has the name you typed, “Create “Quotes”” (with the name you typed) creates the label and puts it on the conversation at once. A slash creates a nested label: Invoices/2026 sits under Invoices, and if there is no label Invoices yet, it is created too, as is every missing level of Invoices/2026/March (on Outlook, the slash is simply part of the name).
• to choose where it goes without typing a slash, pick a label in “Nest under” before creating it. A label’s ”⋯” menu in the column also offers “Create a sub-label” (not on Outlook).

Every member can put a label on and take it off. Creating one is every member’s too, unless the owner keeps it to the owners (see below). The choice is not offered in the Trash.

A label added or removed in Gmail or in Outlook shows up in Trupeo once the mailbox’s emails have come in.

Label several emails at once

Tick emails in the list: the selection’s bar has a “Label” button (on a phone, in its ”⋯” menu). It opens the list of labels, with “Search labels” to narrow it. A label’s box is ticked when every selected email carries it, and half-ticked when only some do: tick it to put it on all of them, untick it to take it off. When you selected every email of a view, beyond the ones shown, each label offers “Add” and “Remove” instead. Trupeo then confirms, for example ““Invoices” added to 12 conversations”, with “Undo”.

If a conversation could not be changed, the message says how many and why, for example because it has not reached Gmail or Outlook yet: try again in a moment.

Change a label’s color, or its name

In an email’s list of labels, a button beside each label opens its settings. In the column, each label’s ”…” menu offers “Change color”, “Rename” and “Delete” too, as the mailbox allows. Every member can use them, unless the owner keeps them to the owners.

• Color. Pick a color and press “Apply”. On Gmail, Trupeo offers the 24 colors Gmail offers for a label, and the label takes exactly the same one in Gmail. A custom color set in Gmail shows as it is, and stays until you pick another one. On Outlook, Trupeo offers the 25 colors of Outlook’s categories, with their names, and “No color”; the category takes the same one in Outlook. On IMAP, Trupeo offers eight colors: “Green”, “Amber”, “Orange”, “Pink”, “Teal”, “Blue”, “Gray” and “Brown”. The color then stays in Trupeo: your email app does not show it.
• Name. Type the new name and press “Rename”. On Gmail and on IMAP, a / puts it under another label, and the labels under it follow: on Gmail, they are renamed in Gmail too. On Outlook, every member can rename a category too, and the emails Trupeo has not fetched keep the old name.

Delete a label

Every member of the mailbox can, unless the owner keeps it to the owners. The window the button beside the label opens offers “Delete this label”. Trupeo asks for confirmation first, and says what will happen:

• Gmail takes the label off every email it is on.
• Outlook removes the category from its list, and Trupeo takes it off every email it knows carries it.
• IMAP: the label is taken off every conversation in Trupeo. The emails stay where they are.

This cannot be undone. A label that still has nested labels cannot be deleted: delete those first.

When only the owner changes the labels

By default, every member creates, renames, recolors and deletes labels. The owner can keep that to the owners, so the labels everyone sorts with stay as they were decided: in the mailbox’s settings, on the “Members” page, under “Member permissions”, turn off “Create, rename and delete labels”. It applies to every member of the mailbox at once.

Members then still put existing labels on emails and take them off, one email at a time or a whole selection. They are no longer offered “Create”, “Change color”, “Rename” or “Delete”. An owner can always do all of it.

On IMAP, labels live in Trupeo

On an IMAP mailbox, labels and their colors are kept by Trupeo, so they do not depend on the server.

• if our team ever has to fetch all of the mailbox’s emails again, Trupeo puts the labels back on the conversations as their emails come back;
• the mailbox data export, which the owner makes, contains them, with the conversations that carry them (see How Trupeo accesses and protects your mailbox).

Find a label through search

In the search, the “Label” filter offers the mailbox’s labels, and “More criteria” has a “Label” field. For those who prefer typing, label: followed by the label’s name finds the conversations that carry it, in any case. For a nested label, write the full path in straight quotes: label:"Invoices/2026". See Find an email again.

When a change does not go through

Trupeo says why beside the button, in plain words. The ones you may come across:

• “The mailbox is disconnected. Reconnect it to change its labels.”: see Reconnect a paused mailbox. On IMAP, labels keep working while the mailbox is disconnected, since they live in Trupeo.
• “Gmail is busy. Try again in a minute.” (or “Outlook is busy. Try again in a minute.”).
• “A label already has this name.”
• “A category name cannot contain a comma or a semicolon.”, on Outlook.