Gmail – How to Re-establish Gmail’s Old Interface

There are quite a lot of ways to solve your problem:

• You can hide the label, so you don't have to see it every time: go to Settings > Labels and choose the labels you want to hide.
• One other way would be to use nested labels. You need a root label; you can call it Old, for example. Then, rename the Amsterdam label to Old/Amsterdam. That way, the Amsterdam label will become a sublabel for Old.
• If all you want is to archive the conversations, search for label:Amsterdam, select all the conversations and archive them.

Obviously there are no rules about this, but a sensible way to use Gmail features would be:

• Leave email in the inbox if it still requires action (some kind of reply or action on your part)
• Archive email once it no longer requires action on your part
• Use the star to flag important messages
• Use labels to categorize messages
• Delete messages you will not need in the future

In this way, the inbox is thought of as your to-do list. Anything in your inbox is something you need to deal with. "Dealing with it" could be replying, researching for more information about something, categorizing for later reference, etc. As you go through your messages, you deal with them then archive them once you've taken the necessary action.

If you need to find an old message you've already "dealt with", you can either search for it (the preferred way), or you can look through the starred messages or through your labels.

Labels and stars are for categorization. The "inbox" label performs the same function as a physical inbox sitting on your desk: It's a list of things you need to do. You don't store things in your inbox, you deal with them then route them wherever they need to go.