[CoBE10]

For my personal mail I like using labels in Gmail instead of archive button. Basically, I categorize mail in a few categories:

1. Receipts, bill, utilities, etc. (Sublabel for every company)

2. Friends&Family (Sublabel for every person)

3. School and school related (Sublabel for every person)

4. Government and government related (Sublabel by organization)

5. Random and miscellaneous

It's archive, but somewhat organized

[secabeen]

Yeah, I do this too. Folders works pretty well in both Gmail Web and IMAP, but I don't do sub-labels, I just jam them all into folders for Commerce, Friends ( one folder per City), Interests, Family (One folder for each closest relative, so stuff from my Mom's sister goes in the Mom folder.)

I use Thunderbird a lot, so Archive is an anti-pattern (I believe it removes all tags from an email, leaving it only in All Mail. I have All Mail turned off in IMAP because it makes a second copy of everything, which is bad in a 20+ year old mail archive.)