Ok so they “sort of” added folder. Even though Gmail still uses labels, you can treat them like folders starting from today.

Gmail added a “move to” drop-down that combines two actions that were difficult to find or difficult to understand: labeling and archiving. Instead of clicking on “More actions”, selecting a label and then archiving the message, you can now click on “Move to” and select a label.

So what’s the difference between the two drop-downs?

“Move to” applies the label selected from the list and removes the label of the current view.

“Labels” lets you add or remove labels from the list in a single action. You no longer have to repeatedly click on “More actions” to add multiple labels (THANK YOU GOOGLE).

Of course you still get the straight drop down… NESTED labels are a needed addition. You can add nested labels with FireFox addons though. I personally recommend the Better GMail 2 addon available via LifeHacker. It’s a compilation of some of the best Greasemonkey user scripts that add features to Gmail.

One of my favorites, and something Google SHOULD add, is nested labels. They look and work like Folders that most users are familiar with from other email clients.

If you don’t see the new features in your Gmail account, they’ll be enabled in the next few hours (I see it active in my GMail already). If you’re interested in the Better Gmail 2 addon you can grab it from LifeHacker here.