Google has announced an update to Google Docs and Spreadsheets that includes improved features and support for folders.
The entire document list within Google Docs and Spreadsheets has been given a complete visual overhaul with “new icons, more content, and better organizational controls”. Searching documents in the service has been improved; dynamically filtered results from documents are listed as a user types.
Folders are the biggest change. Google has not abandoned tagging and yet the inclusion of folders would indicate that Google is finally listening to the millions of people who prefer folders in preference to tagging.
The question I do have is what about Gmail? Without hopefully causing a flurry of people telling me how wonderful tagging is, I’m one of those (perhaps crazy) people who download my email from Gmail into a desktop based email client, and I do so only due to the lack of folders in Gmail. Hopefully the inclusion of folders in Google Docs is a sign of future functionality in Gmail.
I should have added, I also would like to see a grammar checker in Google Docs as well, then I’d never use MS Word again
Hi Duncan
Great post! How do you get around the problem of having the same email appear multiple times in your offline mailbox due to the grouping of conversations in Gmail? I tried it for about a day, but I was responding to the same messages 2-4 times before I realized what was happening. I agree that folders would be a good addition to Gmail functionality, but I wonder how it would be implemented under the current structure of “inbox” or “archive”. I assume you mean folders within the archive.
My understanding, from those smarter than I, is that a code review revealed integration of dictionary/thesaurus, as well as encyclopedia Britannica.
Duncan, if you look closely, folders are just a synonym for tagging — they work in exactly the same way, the word “tag” is not used. So a single item can appear in multiple “folders”, which might still be confusing to some. I like it
Also, as you mentioned, the interface is snazzier, and now the tags are organized to “look like” folders.
Tagging does *not* work in exactly the same way as folders. It does not remove tagged emails from your inbox, as a folder would remove remove them.
Automatically removing emails from your inbox and placing them in a separate folder is a useful tool. I’m signed up for a couple of different listservs, some of which send me 20-30 emails a day. I don’t want all that crap clogging up my inbox and making it hard for me to easily see my important work emails. So having a filter which automatically moves it to a different folder instead of just giving it a lame tag is crucial.
You can very easily create a filter that tags AND archives incoming messages. If you can’t get your head around tags and why they make more sense than folders, you can just pretend the tags ARE folders and leave the rest of us to use our tags.
I agree with Chris – it’s important to have them removed from your inbox. If I’m on 6 list servs (and I have to be) and I tag/archive them all, it cleans up my inbox. Now my archive folder has 6 listservs in it. If I just want to see one, I can’t. It’s the same thing.
I suspect anyone who supports tags doesn’t have experience with a lot of email for work or organizations, all of which you have to keep up with at different paces. At the same time, I often don’t look at one email from a list at a time; I frequently need to refer to recently sent emails which are not in the same conversation JUST FROM THAT LIST. I really need folders for this. OR, just put a list of your tags on the side of the screen so you can sort by them easily. That’s really the only difference. Tags are a bitch to sort by.
Bottom line, just give us the option – conversations on/off, folders or tags. It makes life easy for everyone.
anonymous coward
maybe so, but I still like my drag and dropping, but I’m also over 30 so it’s probably to late to change me
Raj
correct, folders within an archive with rule support similar to Outlook; I use rules extensively to deal with email now.
Gmail needs rules and some folders.
Having recently had my laptop (and back-up drives… sigh) stolen, I really want to embrace online solutions like the ones Google offers — but tagging just never worked for me.
My problem is keyboard rage — in a fit of pique, I’m more apt than not to name a file {$awful_and_imaginative_profanity_involving_chinchillas}.doc than anything useful.
Tagging? In that state of mind, I’d merely add fuel to the fire. Gimmie a rigid folder hierarchy and I can find my work no matter how hair-curling the file name turns out.
Greg
One of the reasons I do all my email through Gmail is the backup for this very situation, I get the best of both worlds this way, downloadable into folders while accessible no matter where I am.
Any of this actually work in Safari yet? I’m a bit fed up with all the talk of Google and Apple’s special relationship when they can’t ship fully featured apps for Apple’s flagship product.
I’m a Gmail user, but my main problem with it is threading. I have missed several messages because they were hiding inside the weird threading that Gmail uses (and, for some reason, Gmail doesn’t let you turn this feature off).
To avoid the threading mess, I use Apple Mail to POP my Gmail. That way I am assured that I will see every message. Gmail then becomes the archive for all my messages.
I am confused about what “folders” would add to Gmail that its labels don’t already provide. Duncan, please give an example of what you want to do but can’t. It has rules (they’re called filters) which can sort messages into different labels/tags/folders/whatever-you-want-to-call-them.
Labels are non-hierarchical, but as long as you don’t name two “subfolders” with the same name, you’ll never notice.
Duncan, I agree with you there in the sense that folders are pretty nice but I think tags allow for more flexibility. I wasn’t much into tagging but after writing so many posts for blogs I got the hang of it and saw a very nice way to organize things.
I think the way Google did here was convert tags into folders so you’re still going to be able to tag documents but visually these will be folders.
About Google Docs, who wasn’t expecting Google Gears with it?? I would love Google Docs and Spreadsheets to go offline as well. Plus, when its the slides feature coming?? I though Google’s change would be with these features but I guess I’ll wait longer.
@9, Safari is Apple’s “flagship product”? really?
possible solutions:
v3 beta? maybe
firefox? yes
I, too, want folders in Gmail. Desperately!
I remember in the early days of Gmail that the help system promised that folders were on the way. Alas, it doesn’t say that anymore.
I agree with polymath. Labels perform the exact same function that folders do, but with the added flexibilty of allowing multiple labels per message. How then are folders better?
And in Docs, they’ve just changed the terminology from ‘tags’ to ‘folders’. The functionality hasn’t changed a bit, so it always confuses me when this discussion comes up. Is it a terminology problem, or a functionality one? And why would you want folders when you have labels/tags? Give me ONE reason!
Please stop saying that labels perform exactly the same as folders, it’s not true in any way shape or form. Jesus, the very words “Folders,” and “Labels” should tell you that. A folder is a folder, you know, something you can put your papers in. A label is something you put on a folder, so that you know what is in the folder, or labeled item. Bet you didn’t know this… Gmail does support both folders and labels! SURPRISE!!! In using Gmail’s current set up you have the option to create as many labels as you want, and call them what ever you want. You also have one folder: “All Mail.” Please keep this in mind the next time you try to tell me folders suck, don’t put them in Gmail, or they are the same as labels. If you are using a computer to store files then your are, in fact using folders.
Folders organize and make for easier searching. Labels only make for easier searching. I’ll give you an example, if you have a PC this will make sense, if you have a mac sell it and buy an iPhone(great machine, still has typical Apple flaws). Imagine you go into windows explorer. Imap folders are just like folders in windows explorer they separate and group files from or with one another. Label are like the details at the top of the file explorer. If I click on “Name” it will order all the files in alphabetical order. Click it again and it will reverse the order. I could also do this for “Date Modified,” “Size,” etc. No imagine that you only had one folder on your hard drive “C:\.” That’s it. Every single file you ever created, edited, viewed, played right there in front of your face. It’s not organized, it’s cluttered.
I remember when all the search engines were emerging and making a name for themselves, Google rose to the top over other search engines, that had much bigger bank accounts(AOL, etc) at the time. They did this with an uncluttered interface which mad for quicker searches, and better search results. This may seem a little harsh but it seems like now they are trying to pull an “Apple” and control every aspect, with little options.
In conclusion(someone else previously said this):
-Folders work good to organize
-Labels work great to search
-How bout let me use both(folders containing e-mails that are labeled) P.S. If you don’t want to use folders no one will make you.
-If that’s to much for you to handle, Google, give me an option to use folders, or labels.
Having said that: How can I get my email to move to a label instead of being labeled when moving from a email client? YES an email client, HTML is not much of an interactive programming language. Clients work better, they are an actual program. Not a document inside of a program such as webmail.
polymath
try Outlook. Drag and drop hierarchical folders. It’s a usability thing for me, as I’ve noted I respect that some people like tags and how it currently works but it doesn’t work like Outlook does for me….and the hundreds of millions of other users who use Outlook as well. Given Gmail is still 3rd (for memory) in online email market share they’d be ignoring a massive audience by not including folder support as well; like it or not people like using interfaces they are familiar with.
Duncan, agreed. Both folders and tags should be supported. In the end, give the end-users what they want. Further, tags and folders are not the same metaphor to an end-user, despite how elegantly it’s implemented behind the scenes in terms of OOP. Folders have a concrete conotation to end-users, where tags are, beyond just metadata, an opportunity to design on-the-fly views of data, saved searches, etc. Further, they are applied and used by end-users in different ways. You create a document in a folder for initial organisation’s sake, but only to tag and retag once it already exists.
@Ben As well, most importantly, tags are not hierarchical as folders are. You basically are assigning a “weight” of precedence to top level folders, as sub folders are more granular, more specific. Now, unless you’re a metadata theorist (like myself), I doubt the average Joe uses tagging in the same way with hierarchical tags like tag.subtag to represent hierarchy.
So this begs the question, when will web tagging support weights, ala network and graph theory?
Well done Duncan, you beat me by 2 minutes regarding hierarchies …
Just as remaind: Google Apps launched as a free service in August 2006 and includes Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail email services, Google Calendar shared calendaring
I think what you’re saying is that you’re looking for a single action that you can perform which puts each message into its intended hierarchy. For instance, dragging a message once into the House\Bills\Power folder.
With gMail’s current setup, one action only nets you one tag, so maybe just the Power tag but not the Bills and House tags.
I think what needs to happen is Google should add some form of tag relationship ability, then you could set a parent/child relationship up between two tags.
For instance, you could set the Power tag to be a child of Bills, and the Bills tag to be a child of House so that every time you add a message to Power, the parent tags are added as well. This would give you the “drag and drop” folder functionality while still maintain tagging’s greater functionality.
Of course all of this would require some interface work from Google, but I for one would welcome it greatly!
(sorry that was so long!)
it is a good change!
tags/labels > folders
they just need to be implemented better
and conversation grouping should be manually link-unlinkable.
please no folders in gmail. ever.
most things can be cross foldered as is, and if not – just use on label on it. simple as that.
Okay, point taken with the hierarchy and I respect your requests. For me it’s never been an issue because I filter everything into only about 20 labels. Once labelled though, I rarely use them again to find a message because I simply use the search function which is much faster than labels/folders and I believe is at the core of GMail’s organisational and functional methodology.
In Gmail, search trumps all, so folders are unnecessary. I believe the Labels are simply there to appease the users in their transition to relying on search. Course I don’t fully practice what I preach, but I can see the intention!
Duncan – I completely agree. We use Gmail in the same way and although the conversation-based sorting, tags and search are effective there’s nothing quite like an efficient series of filters that are one click away.
It can’t be too far off, surely.
You can check out Litepost we’re currently alpha-testing here with tags (work like folders but better IMHO):
http://mail.litepost.com
Seriously let me know what you think of the service (we’re still ironing out some bugs though, necessarily!)
Like Duncan, I use a mix of downloading to Thunderbird and reading online.
I find the conversations both a curse and a blessing! As I tend to use Gmail for mailists, it means that threads I’m not interested in can easily be ignored. On the other hand, as some people get their lists as digests, it can mean that there is more than one conversation for the same thing, so I can’t always tell the order that they arrived in.
I also don’t think that I’m very effective with tagging, I tend to have just a few tags, so I essentially treat them as folders.
What *I’d* really, like, though, would be a way to create a label for all those messages that don’t have another label! I can do a certain extent by filtering, but I have to remember that each time I add an extra filter/label, I have to remember to add the “AND NOT” version of it to my “Misc” filter/label.
An automatic way of doing that would be of real use to me!
Folder ? I don’t mind because the search filter is so good i awalys find the mail i want. I even don’t use ‘tag’. What i would really want is a sort-by-size in Gmail !
Absolutely!! I totally agree with you!! I need my folders, and that´s why I can´t get used to gmail, although I think is one of the best working web-based emails… but I prefer Yahoo!
More than folder, I would like to see an option to turn off threading.
Folders will be definitely useful in addition to tag.
The real missing gmail feature for me is IMAP support. I would switch my email hosting over to gmail in a New York minute if I had the ability to read my mail in a standard mail client via IMAP instead of POP.
I’m being a bit hyperbolic describing Safari as the flagship, but it’s clearly a tremendously important app for Apple — look how much freedom the Safari team have to discuss the product publicly.
I also don’t think that I’m very effective with tagging, I tend to have just a few tags, so I essentially treat them as folders.
Verusli http://www.vers...queen/index.php
I am sitting here wondering when I first starting bloggin on here i used to end my blogs with a signature line with my web-address etc.
Verusli http://www.vers...queen/index.php
the thing is, you could code hierarchical labels, and add drag and drop functionality very quickly – they they would be exactly the same as folders.
I must agree, if Gmail had folders, I could get rid of Outlook.
I don’t think this was mentioned, but one of the great things about a folder structure is that I can find information with just my mouse. As some mentioned, Gmail’s strong point is search. That means I have to type my search term(s).
For example, if I need to find the login information for a client’s hosting account at Web.com, (which I saved in the following folder structure – Client Name/Client Site/Hosting) I can find that in four clicks. One click to expand the Client Name folder, one click to expand the Client Site folder, one click to expand the Hosting folder and one click to open the message that has the information I need.
How can I do that faster by searching? Not only do I have to type my search term, I have to think about what search term to type. In my case, i have multiple clients, who have multiple sites, who use the same hosting company. What kind of search term(s) would I have to use to NOT get 40-50 results? Then I have to find the message that has the information I need. For you web developers out there, hosting companies tend to use the same subject lines for the various types of emails they send. I won’t be able to quickly scan and know which email contains the information I need.
As Cuneyt points out, folders provide a very efficient way to store information in a hierarchical manner that tagging does not. This structure also provides an extremely quick way to find information amongst 1000’s of emails that search just can’t do in a few clicks of the mouse.
yes me too, no more outlook with folders in gmail, that will be great….
Folders?? Unless you’re using an external email application you don’t need folders. Labels are folders, but even better.
I used to think like that (needing folders in Gmail). You don’t need folders. Labels act like folders, but they’re even better. You see, sometimes you have an email which you would like to save, but have two different folders you can place it in. With the labels, you just add two labels to that email. After you place a label on an email, you hit the “Archive” button for that email. Now you have the email saved in your folder(s).
I keep my inbox up to date with no more than 10 emails since I delete or label/archive them ASAP.
IMHO tags/labels are better approach.
I would have loved to see tags instead of folders in google docs.
Wow,
I didn’t realize what a Microsoft Outlook fanboy you were Duncan.
They haven’t changed anything. The folders are the same as tags, just a different name. You can apply multiple “folders” to each item, same as the tag system before. The only difference is how Google is listing the tags (they are packaging them as folders).
I cringe at the thought of them adding folders to Gmail. I have abandoned all use of folders. Because how Google has developed labels it is so much easier to “tag” a particular message with multiple labels and you can find messages alot easier.
The mindset that folders are the best and only option for true organization needs to end. Outlook is by no means the best option its just the option most people are accustomed to using. Doesnt mean that other options are less capable of doing the job.
I have had a gmail account since the beginning. But I RARELY use it because of the lack of folders, and additionally because of the way gmail threads emails with similar subjects. I’m on a LOT of mailing lists and the threading is a mess and I lose mail all the time. I tried for about a month to make it work with gmail, but went back to thunderbird through my ISP. I can create folders, rules, and there is no threading to lose posts in.
Folders may be representable using labels, but there is implicit functionality in many foldering interfaces that is not available in the current labeled approach gmail provides (or maybe it is, but certainly not evident to me).
When you drag and drop something into a folder, you are also making sure that it disappears from your primary view. That, to me, is very important. Essentially the primary view becomes “stuff I havent dealt with”. Maybe google should add an “unlabeled” view.
As someone else mentioned, folders also serve as end points into multiple labels by virtue of being organized into a hierarchy. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but it does allow quick addition of groups of tags to a particular message.
I too would love to see Folders in Gmail. Though I use tagging, when I refer people to use the service they get turned off by the lack of folders, even though tagging achieves the same end result. Most computer users aren’t savvy enough to figure out the whole tag thing. When you’ve been using Outlook for so many years, I could see how that would be confusing. Especially for the older generation.
I’ve suggested to Google on more than one occasion that they need to treat tags as folders for IMAP clients and vice versa, to no avail thus far. I live in my IMAP client throughout the day, whether it be web-based or client-based, and I use the folder hierarchy to keep everything organized.
IMAP is better-suited than POP3 for keeping mail in multiple locations. POP3 often forgets which mail you’ve already downloaded, and insists on downloading the same things again and again.
Wait! You’re missing the lack of tagging in your E-Mail client and that’s why you want GMail to support folders?
I’d prefer seeing to asking for a new E-Mail protocol, one that supports tagging! It’s about time…
These aren’t folders, they are labels.
“How do you tell folders and labels (or tags) apart? With folders, you can only put a single document into a single folder. With labels (or tags), on the other hand, a document can exist ‘in’ multiple labels.”
http://www.trik...ls-not-folders/
folders are great –
tags are great –
Combining to greats – is a great thing.
-Rbowles
Duncan, the new Google Docs is exactly like you wanted just folders, but the tags were helpful in many ways. For example if you write this document in Google Docs, there are three labels based on the subjects you write, Google Docs, GMail, Folder, how will assign you just one folder? Tags are a better way to organize you can group topics based on GMail, Google Docs and so on. Now the new Google Docs has removed the tags totally which is absurd. I have more than 1000 documents if I had to go back and assign one folder for everyone it will be a massive headache. How can assign one folder, when a particular topic has many keywords. Labels are a much better option than folders. It doesn’t take long to adjust. Hope Google Docs brings labels back.
so can I tag docs and put them on folders now? can I have folders inside of folders?