Gmail Labels – Fastest Way to Hide All Labels in Gmail

I have about 70 labels in my Gmail. I am not aware of the limit ot the number of labels you can have... I use nested labels and label colouring - no problems. I have not noticed any other performance issues or conflicts with other features/software.

UI concerns... Yes, the list on the left is very long. However, I hardly even find that a problem. The visibility controls of labels are very helpful. The most frequently used/important labels are set to show, other used to show if unread, the rest - to hide. Then I use the search bar with label:[xyz] to navigate to more obscure labels.

Overall, I love the ability to create as many label as I like. Makes the management and use of Gmail so much easier.

There is not a native Gmail setting to shorten nested label names, although Gmail will automatically shorten label names if needed:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/long-label-names-in-gmail.html

However, there is a Greasemonkey script that will do exactly what you want:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/149052