Drag and Drop your emails to labels with Gmail

So I logged on my Gmail account today, and I noticed something different. Aside from the loads of email I got, there was this huge reminder from the Gmail team showing me the new features they just rolled out.

Interesting huh? I, for one, loved the fact that the Gmail team moved up the labels above the chat window. It makes more sense, really. And here is the rundown of the changes:

1) New location for labels
You’ll notice your labels in a new location on the left of your inbox (or on the right, for those of you using the Arabic, Hebrew, or Urdu versions of Gmail). Instead of having their own section, your labels are now above your chat list, grouped together with Inbox, Drafts, Chats and other system labels.

2) Label hiding and showing
You now have control over which of your labels show. We’ve done our best to get you started by automatically showing the labels you use most and hiding the rest. Label hiding is my favorite new feature, since it saves me from having to look through labels I rarely use. If I ever need to reach any of my old labels, I just click the “more” link.

For those of you who created label names like _stuff or ++todo++ to force your most-used labels to the top of the list (come on, you know who you are, I did it too…), you don’t have to come up with clever tricks like that anymore.

3) Drag and drop
Now this is the new feature I’m really crazy about. I mean, if Google Reader has drag-and-drop, why shouldn’t Gmail have similar features? Well, now you can now drag messages into labels, just like you can with folders. This does the exact same thing as “Move to” — it labels and archives in one step.

You can drag labels onto messages too. It’s the same thing as using the “Label” button. To label or move many messages at once, first select the messages and then drag and drop the label.