Annoyed that you have your Gmail inbox settings set to ‘default’, which is *supposed* to put everything in your inbox, but it insists on still creating and using a “purchases” folder? Yeah, me too. Here’s how to fix it.

You see, when you select the ‘default’ inbox in Gmail, in theory it eliminates the inbox+folders setup. It’s supposed to do away with those pesky tabs (folders) like “promotions” and “purchases” into which Gmail otherwise oh-so-helpfully (not) sorts your email for you, without your even asking.

I’m old school. I like my email all in one place unless *I* decide that it should go somewhere else.

So, whenever I set up a new Gmail account the first thing I do is go to Settings > inbox and change it from all of the cutesy folders to ‘default’. In some instances Gmail even says “Get your old inbox back”!

But they lie. Because when you select ‘default’ now they put *some things* in your inbox…but not everything. Even when you do away with *all* the folders, and have just the main, default inbox… suddenly.. wait, is that a “purchases” folder? Even though I told Gmail I just want one, old-style inbox?

Why yes it is.

It’s almost as if Google thinks that it knows better than you what *you* want! “I know you said to get rid of folders, and I did get rid of promotions, social, updates, and forums! I just figured you didn’t *really* mean to get rid of the purchases folder, so hey, I have you 80% of what you asked for, that’s pretty good, right?”

Wrong.

It turns out, you see, that the “purchases” folder is under the purview of Google’s AI “Smart Features”. This is an entirely separate setting, for which you would never think to look, even if you knew about it.

It turns out that the Smart Features are also to blame for such creepy things as that “We know that you just ordered something from Amazon, here is the tracking for it” at the top of a Google search page. Dammit, Google, if I wanted you to track my shopping and shipping I’d tell you.

So, here is how to get rid of the “purchases” folder, and how to turn off all of those stupid Smart Features also, if you want to.

Log into your Gmail account. Go to settings (the gear icon at the top of the page).

Under Settings go to ‘General’.

Now go all the way down the page. No, further. Keep going. Stop when you see ‘Smart Features’.

You will see that the box is checked by default. Uncheck it.

You an also turn off more smart features right below there.

Enjoy your now truly default Gmail inbox!