Gmail is one of the most popular email services in the world for two big reasons – it’s free, and it’s easy to use. In fact, the Gmail app has been so simple for years that it takes a good amount of flack from email power users that feel like it could offer more features.

I am willing to give Google a little leeway on this, as not everyone needs a fully-0firing email app. Send and receive is more than enough for most of us. But there is one Gmail feature I use extensively that is not available on the Android app, even though we’ve had it for years on desktop and even on iOS (that’s iPhone and iPad).

Labels are one of the quickest and easiest ways to sort out and organise your inbox on Gmail. I’ve got several labels spanning back more than a decade for various bills, house moves, holidays and other personal projects.

On Chrome or any other browser, you can click on the left hand menu to view or create labels and sort all your electronic mail away. When I use an iPhone, I can do exactly the same.

So, I have never understood why on earth over on Android – the mobile operating system built by Gmail creator Google – you can’t create labels in the Gmail app. You can view them, but you can’t create them, meaning on-the-go organisation of your messages is somewhat hamstrung. I was reminded of this the other day when work emails started pouring in that I wanted to file under a label, only to remember I couldn’t do it on my Android phone.

Thankfully, this might finally be about to change. According to a report from Android Authority, the Android Gmail app might soon be updated to let you create, edit and delete labels.

At the time of writing, you can only sort emails into or out of labels you have already create on another platform.

Android Authority managed to get the options working in a recent version of the Gmail for Android app. It was able to create labels and have it all working just as you would expect it already should be in 2026!

It could create labels from the sidebar, or head into the settings tab to edit or delete them.

The caveat there is that though this feature was seemingly able to be used in an upcoming version of Gmail for Android, it’s no guarantee that you’ll get the feature soon. Google might be testing the update and then decide not to push it out globally.

That said, the fact it has been spotted in this way is a heavy hint that you will finally soon be able to create, edit and delete email labels in Gmail on Android. It’s about time.