Customise Your Gmail Labels With Unicode Characters

Inspired by previously mentioned tinyarro.ws URL-shortening service, reader David decided to try inserting helpful Unicode characters in his Gmail labels to give more context to each label. With Unicode characters, David is able to divide his labels into logical groups without a a custom script like Folders4Gmail.

Right now I’m using these (see screenshot):

▶ Main categories (e.g. financial information, social networks)
✉ Other email accounts
✦ Individuals
❤ Lady-type individuals
➡ Single source (e.g. just eBay)

But there are plenty of good ones to play with:

✖ ✔ ✸ ● ■
◢ ◣ ◤ ◥
◧ ◨ ◩ ◪
▲ ▼ ▶ ◀
♂ ♀ ♪ ♫ ☼

I used the Wikipedia list of Unicode characters for reference:

The sort order is the handy bit to keep in mind. I picked ✦ (U+2726) for individuals because it’s just a little above ❤ (U+2764).

I’m also using Unicode on my Gmail task lists. I have my other lists named in plain text, and I’ve used an arrow to sort my main list (”➡ main”) to the bottom.

Very cool, David!