Email : Labels vs. Folders

I was browsing the Associated Press on ZNet about google and it's offline feature and it started to raise a few questions I can't answer.

The benefits / downfalls of folders (hotmail / yahoo / outlook etc ...) like or labels like gmail.

I am torn between the two as which is best. I see the value in labels but you can't organize them. You can't put all 'done' things together or 'inprogress' or 'emails from mom'. Yeah the labels can mark them what they are ... but without the organizational aspect of folders it makes things cluttered and hard to find as all items are bulked together with colors.

So perhaps I am more for folders while labeling things as important or from whomever with a label but prefer folders.

Thought this might bring about some interesting discussions as each has it's own following ... any takers?

The only difference between labels and folders, is that you can place a message "in" multiple labels.

I see that benefit but you can't place a like group of messages together which is where labels fail in my opinion. They are "labeled together" but not truely together. A combination of the two is the best in my opinion.

The more I think about it, the more I want to say there's absolutely no difference between the two at all.

Creating a folder view from an existing label system would be a pretty trivial task.

To me it keeps like emails together if there may not be a keyword or subject line that links them together. Or even if there is a like subject for a service such as Netflix, having a netflix folder to keep them one level down in the inbox.

This could be a thing of preference, and what one is used to. And I happen to like to organize my emails so they remain in plain view in the inbox but are in sub folders.

UPDATE: Apparently Gmail specifically has the feature I was looking for it is just not mentioned anywhere (that makes sense to me) you can click on labels and view only emails with those labels.

So I guess my post was a moot point as I just barely found that "feature".