Gmail gets multiple inboxes

Google has been busy on the Gmail front lately, and the announcements keep on coming with the latest a very hand feature indeed.

Gmail now allows users to have multiple “inboxes” open. Given Google continually confuses language between tags and folders, inbox is an interesting word, because it’s not so much a separate account, but the ability to have multiple tag pages, and folders such as sent and starred open at the same time.

The new feature is available as an option in Gmail labs. Once switched on, users can set up what “inboxes” they want to appear in Gmail next to their regular mail.

It is a handy feature, but it lacks in use. Where this would be far more handy would be the ability to allocate “inboxes” on the fly in Gmail, for example clicking on a label would give you the option to open in full, or open as a side inbox, where as you can only predefine inboxes via settings; ok if you need the same labels open at all times, but useless for impromptu allocation, which is where I’d be more likely to use it.

A step forward, and another step closer to folder like ubiquity.