Proton Mail uses a flexible hybrid system of folders, subfolders, and labels to maximize productivity and organization within your inbox.

- **Folders** are containers for your emails. If you move a message into a folder, it is removed from your **Inbox**. Each message can only be stored in one folder (in addition to the **All mail** and **Starred** folders) at a time.
- **Labels** are simple tags you can add to messages to make them easier to find or to apply filters to. You can add multiple labels to a message, and adding a label does not move it from the folder it is stored in (for example, your **Inbox**).

Custom labels and folders are shown in the left-hand sidebar of the web app or when you tap the **Menu** (hamburger) icon in our mobile apps.

## Folders

Proton Mail currently uses eight default folders to hold all of your emails — **Inbox**, **Drafts**, **Sent**, **Starred**, **Archive**, **Spam**, **Trash**, and **All mail**.

By default, the **All mail** folder contains all the emails in your account, except those in **Spam** and **Trash**. To change this behavior, go to **Settings** **→ All settings**→ **Proton Mail **→ **Messages and composing** **→ **Exclude Spam/Trash from All mail** and toggle the switch **off**.

### **Custom folders**

Besides the eight default folders, you can create your own custom folders and subfolders. This can be done from the sidebar in the Proton Mail web app. Simply click the **+** icon next to the **Folders** heading.

You can achieve the same result by going to **Settings → All settings**→ **Proton Mail → **Folders and labels**→ **Folders**→ **Add folder**. Folders can also be deleted and folder notifications toggled on and off from this menu.

- To delete folders, click the **∨** icon next to the **Edit** button in the **Actions** column and select **Delete** from the dropdown menu.
- **Notifications** alert you when a filter you have set up moves an email to that folder.

**[Learn more about how to use filters](/content/support/email-inbox-filters/index.html)**

You can choose a folder name, parent folder, and whether you want to see a notification alert when new messages arrive in the folder. By default, folders will have the same color. You can choose to enable folder colors by going to **Settings → All settings**→ **Folders and labels**→ **Folders**→ **Use folder colors**.

You can manually move messages from one folder to another by selecting the email and clicking the **Move to** icon in the email toolbar. Select the folder you would like the email to be placed in and click **Apply**.

## Labels

To create a new label, click the + icon next to the **Labels** heading in the sidebar of the main Proton Mail web app.

This will open the **Create label** menu, where you can name your label and assign it a color.

Alternatively, go to **Settings → All settings**→ **Proton Mail → **Folders and labels**→ **Folders**→ **Add label**. Labels can also be deleted from here by selecting **Delete** from the dropdown menu under **Actions**.

You can manually add labels to any email, regardless of which folder it resides in. Select the email and click the **Label** icon in the email toolbar and select as many labels as you like in the dropdown menu. Then click **Apply**.

Selecting **Also archive** removes the message from your **Inbox** and places it in your **Archive** folder. If you want to move a message to a different folder, use the **Move to** option discussed above.

If you want emails from a specific sender to automatically have the same label assigned, select **Always label sender’s emails**.

Please remember that labels are just tags, and messages are actually stored in folders. If you delete a message from its folder, that message will also lose all labels associated with it.

**Tip 1:** Adding labels to messages and then archiving them can be used to emulate folders, except that you can add multiple labels to any email.

**Tip 2:** You can automatically move emails to folders and add labels to emails using [filters](/content/support/email-inbox-filters/index.html).

## Folder and label limits

Users on a Proton Free plan are limited to creating three folders and three labels. On any paid Proton Mail plan you can create unlimited folders and unlimited labels.