Folders and Labels - Differences - Airmail for macOS
There can be confusion between Label and Folders, generally. Gmail uses 'Labels' and some of the other .
IMAP service providers have 'Folders' but they act very similar to Labels. See below that how Airmail works:
For Gmail/Google Apps Accounts:
- Folders are called labels because Google allows a message to belong to multiple labels at the same
moment. It simply means that 'A single copy of a message' can be accessed through all the labels which
the message has on it.
For POP3/Generic IMAP/Exchange Accounts:
- Folders are used and a single message has to be copied to all the folders if you wish them to remain in
multiple folders at the same point of time.
Updated on: 03/28/2026
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