One of the most interesting things about Web-based email is that the company that manages the service can change the interface at any time, sometimes tiny, subtle changes and other times major, sweeping user interface updates. Think “Facebook” and its oft-major changes, for example. And, yes, Google Mail or Gmail, which also has its share of changes, though less than you’d expect given how many years Gmail’s been around.
Still, the challenge is to keep up with all the changes.
Chief amongst them on the Gmail side is the addition of a tabbed interface. It’s a nice way to have the mail service automatically file your incoming messages in one of a number of different “categories”, known as tabs.
The full list of tabs are Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums, but not everyone sees tabs, and if you do — as you’ve found — you might not get all the tabs anyway.
Which leads to the problem, as illustrated here:
As you can see, there are two tabs missing: Social and Updates.
To check on which tabs are available and which you want, click on the gear icon on the top right:
In the middle you can see the choice you want: “Configure inbox”.
Click on it and you’ll have a window pop up that gives you everything you need to disable tabs (by simply unchecking everything) or picking specific tabs that you’d like:
Select every tab if you’d like, or just those that match your email profile — and you already know you can refile messages in different tabs because of my previous article on the subject — and click “Save”.
And here’s the result:
All done. And now you know.
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