Creating a Label in Gmail

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This guide was created or last modified prior to 2019, and screenshots or individual steps may now be out of date. If you need assistance with the steps below, please email the Help Desk at ts@dornsife.usc.edu.

The University of Southern California provides several email service options to faculty members. One of those options is USC Gmail for Faculty. USC Gmail for Faculty provides the ability to send and receive your USC email in a Gmail interface.

In order to organize your email messages in Gmail, and to prevent messages from being deleted by the USC email retention policy, you will need to utilize the labels feature in Gmail. Labels are just like folders. You can create labels and then apply them to your email messages.

Creating a Label in Gmail

Complete the following steps to create a label in Gmail.

Navigate to https://google.usc.edu. The Google Apps @ USC page displays.
Select the Gmail option. The login page displays.
Enter your USC NetID in the Username field.
Enter your USC NetID password in the Password field. This is the same password used to access Workday, USC email, and Blackboard.
After entering your username and password, select Sign in. You will be prompted to Duo authenticate.
After completing the Duo authentication, the Gmail dashboard displays.
Select the More option, located on the left side of the screen. The sidebar menu expands.
Select the Create New Label option from the left sidebar. The New Label screen displays.
Enter the name of the new label. If you are going to nest the label (a nested label is like a subfolder) under another label, do not select a system default label as the parent label or the label will be subject to the USC email retention policy. Example: a label titled 2018 that is nested under the label Inbox would be subject to the email retention policy. In order to prevent the labeled messages from being deleted by the retention policy, do not nest the label under a system default label (Inbox, Deleted Items, Archive, Sent, Junk, etc). It is recommended that you do not nest labels or that you nest labels only under other labels you have created.
After entering the name of the new label, select Create. The new label is created and appears in the Gmail sidebar.

Repeat these steps to create additional Gmail labels.