How do I edit my Gmail labels?

Last reviewed: September 23, 2026 · Markdown version

Editing a label happens behind the More menu beside its name in Gmail's sidebar, and the important part is what editing does not touch. The web steps below are from Google's own page (Create & manage labels in Gmail, read 23 September 2026).

Rename, nest, colour

On the web, move to the label's name in the left sidebar, click More, and edit from there. The same menu holds Label color, and Google allows up to 100 custom colours. To nest one label inside another, Google documents a "Nest label under" checkbox when you create a label; its editing steps say only "Edit your label", without listing what the edit dialog offers.

Delete

Same menu: Remove label. This is the step people worry about, and the worry is misplaced. Google's developer reference describes deleting a label as removing "it from any messages and threads that it's applied to" (Method: users.labels.delete, read 23 September 2026) — the label goes, and nothing in it says the messages go with it. The mirror-image fact, in Google's words, is the one to remember: "When you delete an email, it's removed from every label and your inbox." The same page is blunt that "Labels are different from folders": a message under three labels is still one message, so deleting it takes it out of all three at once.

The ceiling

"You can create up to 5,000 labels," says the same Gmail Help page, which keeps a separate pointer for anyone creating labels with the Gmail API. Reaching that by hand would take some doing, and in our view a label list in the thousands is unusable long before it is full.

On phones

Both Gmail apps can create, rename and delete labels, not only apply them. On Android it is Menu, Settings, your account, Manage labels (Create & manage labels in Gmail — Android, read 23 September 2026); on iPhone and iPad it is Menu, Settings, Inbox customizations, Labels (Create & manage labels in Gmail — iPhone & iPad, read 23 September 2026). Neither phone page describes nesting or colours; those steps appear only in the computer instructions.

Why the label list grows unusable

Labels are a decision you make once per message, forever. Every one you create is a question you will be asked again on the next message that could plausibly go there — and "could plausibly go there" grows faster than the list does. That is why label systems tend to collapse: not because labels are bad, but because they are a per-message cost paid indefinitely.

The way out is not more labels, it is fewer decisions: Gmail's filters can "send email to a label" (Create rules to filter your emails, read 23 September 2026), which turns a recurring per-message question into a single rule. How Gmail filters work.