About that Gmail “Promotions” tab

Exquisite-gmail red (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It seems that a lot of people still misunderstand what the Gmail promotions tab is and does.

How do I know this? Because I still get questions from time-to-time along the lines of “How do we get our mail out from the ‘Promotions’ tab and back into the inbox?”

All that Google has done here has been to organize the inbox by putting things into categories. If a message is in any tab, it’s actually still in the inbox.

Don’t believe me? There are two ways to test this out:

1. Turn the tab off. (Click on the geared wheel, then choose the “inbox” tab and uncheck the box by “promotions”.) When you turn the tab off, the mail in that tab will show up… in your inbox.
2. Check mail using IMAP. (If you’re checking mail using your mobile device, but not using the Gmail app, then you’re already doing this.)

I prefer pointing out the second method, because it allows people to see the message both in the “promotions” tab in Gmail’s interface AND see the message in the inbox on their phone or tablet.