How to Enable or Disable Tabs in Gmail Inbox

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Google is rolling out a pretty major update to Gmail, and it should be available in your account very soon. The new inbox features a tabbed interface that automatically sorts your incoming emails into categories such as Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums.

Gmail Inbox Tabs

How to Enable Tabs in Gmail Inbox

If you are using a custom inbox style such as Priority Inbox, you won’t see the tabbed interface until you turn them on. Here’s how you can do so:

Sign into your Gmail account, click the gear icon on the right of the screen and choose “Configure inbox.”
Next you’ll be asked which tabs you want to use. Primary, social and promotions are checked by default; updates and forums are the other available options.
After you make your selections and save, you’ll find emails sorted among the tabs.

If you find an email in an incorrect category, you can click on it and drag to the correct one. This will bring up a prompt asking if you want to continue to get that particular kind of email in the new tab. Saving you further work.

How to Disable Tabs in Gmail Inbox

If you don’t like the new layout and prefer the classic layout of Gmail with all you messages in one list, you can easily get back the old look by hiding all tabs. When you hide a tab, messages in that category will appear in your Primary tab instead.

To hide a tab, click the “+” icon to the right of your tabs and uncheck all boxes in the popup that opens.

Disable Gmail Inbox Tabs

That’s it.