Official Gmail Blog
News, tips and tricks from Google's Gmail team and friends.
How to create a vacation responder (and 50 other things you might want to teach your parents)
December 13, 2010
Posted by Evan Steinberg, Gmail (Parental) Support Team
My parents have a history of bringing work with them when we go on family vacations. At first it was just a few paper documents to review at the beach...years later, a laptop...now a smartphone. They couldn’t let go for fear that a colleague might need to get a hold of them.
My folks aren’t the only ones frightened by the prospect of missing an important message when they’re away from their inbox -- there must be millions of people with the same concern. Not everyone knows that Gmail can help you relax when you’re on vacation by automatically notifying colleagues, friends, and family that you’re away (handy for the holidays).
To enlighten parents and families around the world about how basic technology can improve their lives, a handful of us at Google decided to create a website --
TeachParentsTech.org
-- where “kids” of any age can send basic how-to videos to their moms, dads, uncles -- whomever. Here’s a video I made that walks you through how to set up an email auto-responder message:
To see more videos or to send someone a tech support “care package” of your own, visit
TeachParentsTech.org
.
Gmail for Android: better Priority Inbox support and improved compose
December 9, 2010
Posted by Paul Westbrook, Gmail for Android team
(Cross posted from the
Mobile blog
)
When we first
released Gmail in Android Market back in September
, we said that you’d be getting new stuff faster, and we meant it. After getting thousands of comments on that release, we made a bunch of updates based on your feedback and today we’re launching Gmail for Android 2.3.2.
Priority Inbox
First of all, you told us that you love
Priority Inbox
and expect much better support for it on your phone. Now you can see important messages in a new Priority Inbox view.
This view includes all important messages in your inbox, regardless of whether you’ve read them or not. You can archive and delete conversations or mark them unimportant from there. You’ll notice the importance markers
you’re used to seeing in the desktop version of Gmail, and you can also change a conversation’s importance using the menu. To switch between inboxes or labels, try tapping on the current label.
Ever wanted to know that you got an important message without taking your phone out of your pocket? Now you can set up your phone to notify, vibrate, or ring on just your new important mail (check out Menu > Settings > Priority Inbox).
While Priority Inbox on your Android phone doesn’t have all the features offered in the desktop version of Gmail, we think this is a good start and plan to add even more functionality moving forward.
Improved Compose
Since our last Market update, we adopted a few features related to composing messages from the desktop version of Gmail. Many of you asked for a better way to switch between replying to the sender to replying to all. Now, you can easily switch between reply, reply all, and forward while composing your response.
If you moved to Gmail from another webmail provider and want to continue to send email from that address, now you can
send from any address you’ve configured
in the desktop version of Gmail.
In addition, you can now respond to messages in-line.
You won’t need to wait for Gingerbread to get these updates. This version of the Gmail app works for Android 2.2 (Froyo) and newer releases in
most countries
. (Not sure if your device is running the right version?
Check here
.) Get the update from Android Market (just scan the QR code below, or
Klicken Sie hier
if you're on a phone) and check out the new Gmail. And don’t forget to send us your feedback from within the new version of the app (from your Inbox: Menu > More > About > Feedback).
Event time zones in Google Calendar
December 7, 2010
Posted by Oleksandr Kyreiev, Software Engineer
Dealing with time zones can be a headache. Whether you’re a regular traveler or trying to plan ahead for your weekend in Paris, it’s often difficult to keep track of time differences. We’ve heard your feedback and are pleased to announce a new addition to Google Calendar: event time zones.
With event time zones, you can specify the time zone for a given event. So when you’re home in Florida, you can more easily set up dinner with your friend in Paris for the following week. Events will appear on your calendar according to the current time zone you’re in, and when you change to your destination time zone they’ll be in the right place. Just click the “Time zone” link to the right of the date and time fields on the event page. You can even set up events which start in one time zone and end in another, ideal for those of you who fly often.
A Priority Inbox update: time savings, new features, and your feedback
December 6, 2010
Posted by Pal Takacsi-Nagy, Engineering Manager
It's been a couple of months since we first
launched Priority Inbox
. Since then, we’ve heard from a number of you who’ve found it helpful in combating information overload, and we’ve seen evidence of this in aggregate too. Looking at median time in conversation view, we noticed that typical Priority Inbox users spend 43% more time reading important mail compared to unimportant, and 15% less time reading email overall as compared to Gmail users who don’t use Priority Inbox. We’re excited about the impact Priority Inbox can have, and we’re listening to your feedback in order to make it even better.
For example, one thing we heard is that you wanted to know why Gmail classifies certain messages as important. So starting today, when you hover over an
importance marker
(
) you’ll see a short explanation (e.g. “Important because you marked it as important” or “Important mainly because of the people in the conversation.”).
You also told us that you thought Priority Inbox didn’t learn fast enough, so we've made it much more responsive to your manual corrections.
If you have more ideas for improvements, please share them with us on our new
Priority Inbox product ideas page
— or just vote on ideas that others suggest. Your feedback will help us make Priority Inbox work for even more Gmail users.
Call credits for military families this holiday season
December 3, 2010
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
(Cross-posted from the
Google Voice blog
)
Keeping in touch with family during the holiday season can be challenging for anyone, but it’s especially difficult for military families with loved ones serving around the country or overseas.
Gmail’s built in
video chat
and
free calls to the U.S. and Canada
can help keep friends and family in contact regardless of how far apart they may be. To make staying in touch this holiday season even easier for military families, we’re offering a
$10 calling credit
to help them reach their loved ones serving abroad.
These international call credits can be used to make calls with
Google Voice
or from right inside
Gmail
, and will provide families with roughly 30 minutes of call time to Afghanistan, 60 minutes to Iraq, or hundreds of minutes to many countries in Europe and around the world.
To make this possible, we’ve partnered with
Blue Star Families
and
Sesame Street
, two organizations dedicated to supporting service members and their families.
Photo by Sesame Workshop, 2010
To be eligible for $10 calling credits, military family members must:
Be a member of either Blue Star Families or Sesame Street Family Connections — registration is free for all military families
Provide their Gmail address
Enable
calling in Gmail
and accept the terms of service OR have an existing Google Voice account
Complete
this registration form
by December 22, 2010
We recognize the sacrifices military family members make when loved ones serve abroad, and we’re proud to help make it a little bit easier for families to stay connected over the holidays.
At this time, Google Voice and calling in Gmail are available in the U.S. only.
New in Labs: Smart mute and easier ways to unmute
December 1, 2010
Posted by Bruce DiBello, Software Engineer
If you subscribe to a lot of mailing lists and like to keep an empty inbox,
muting
(or preventing a conversation from re-entering your inbox) is an essential feature. We just made a few changes that should make muting even better.
First up is “Smart Mute,” a new Gmail Labs feature that helps solve the problem of conversations that just won’t die. You know the ones I’m talking about: those emails with 10+ people cc’d where everyone replies all, but you lost interest five emails ago. The current mute behavior doesn’t do well in these situations since the messages are addressed to you. You end up with muted messages in your inbox, and the only way to prevent these emails from coming back to your inbox has been to create a custom filter for a specific conversation.
If you enable “Smart Mute” from the
Labs tab in Gmail Settings
, muted conversations will only appear in your inbox if a new message in the conversation is addressed to you and no one else, or a new email in the conversation adds you to the “To” or “Cc” line. Once you enable Smart Mute, mute behavior will change across all versions of Gmail: web, mobile, Android, etc. Try it out and
let us know
what you think.
Since you’ll likely be muting more than ever, we also added easier ways to unmute muted conversations. Previously, the only way to unmute a conversation was to move it to your inbox -- not super intuitive and useless if the conversation was already in your inbox. Now there are two new ways to unmute a conversation. The first is through an "Unmute" option in the "More actions" menu. You’ll see this when you view or select a muted conversation.
If you’re viewing a muted conversation, you’ll see the second new way to unmute: the "Muted" label next to the subject line now behaves just like all other labels. Clicking on the "X" will remove the Muted label and unmute the conversation.
Hopefully these changes will make it easier to mute and unmute conversations.
New in Labs: Recently used emoji
November 30, 2010
Posted by Darren Lewis, Software Engineer
When we added
emoticons in Gmail
, you responded with a nice big smile
, but then you asked for more. So we added
hundreds more emoticons
through Gmail Labs. “But alas!” you cried. “How can I ever keep up with so many different choices?
I am overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of emotion
, amusement
, and cute animals
that Gmail has to offer." Well, don’t despair, fine purveyor of emoticons. There is now a solution: “Recently Used Emoji” in Gmail Labs, which keeps track of the ten most recent emoticons you’ve used, and saves them for easy access. To turn it on, just visit the
Labs tab of Gmail Settings
.
No more searching through dozens of cat faces for the one that says, “I miss you, but I’m still ambivalent about our weekend plans.” You can now triumph over the plethora of emoticons, and easily add a pile of emotion to any email that you choose —
let us know
how it goes.
Optional attendees in Google Calendar
November 29, 2010
Posted by Karol Stosiek, Software Engineering Intern
Time is one of our most precious resources. Despite their necessity, meetings tend to vary in importance for different attendees. John might be really interested in his team’s weekly meeting, whereas Jane, who is working on a unrelated project, may want to skip it.
Guests’ roles in meetings tend to vary as well. Some people have to be there to lead the meeting or help make decisions, whereas others are gathering information they may be able to digest just as well via the notes. Without knowing which attendees are crucial and which are optional, it can be difficult to know which meetings you really need to attend.
That’s where Google Calendar’s new “Optional attendees” feature comes in. With a couple clicks, you can openly communicate the importance of a meeting for each attendee. Click on the “Make some attendees optional link” above the guest list and then toggle the role of each attendee by clicking the icon next to his or her name. So far, this feature has helped us more effectively manage our own time on the Calendar team — we hope it does the same for you.
Gmail homepage makeover
November 15, 2010
Posted by Jason Toff, Product Marketing Manager
If you visited the
Gmail log-in page
recently, you may have noticed that things looked a wee bit different. We decided to give this page a bit of a facelift and updated a few of Gmail’s
other
pages
while we were at it. Our goal was to keep a familiar look while freshening up the graphics and trimming down the text (we cut out over 250 words in the process).
Here’s a before & after of the log-in page:
We also updated the Gmail logo, brightening the colors and making it more in line with the latest
Google logo
:
Five new themes
November 4, 2010
Posted by Manu Cornet, Software Engineer
Manu
: Hey, how would you fancy some new Gmail themes?
Jake
: Sure, I would love that! How usable are they?
Manu
: Huh, usable? Well, there’s a flishy-flashy theme that blinks every...
Jake
: What? I don’t want things to flash, I want to read my email.
Manu
: No? Well then, what about this fluorescent pink theme that will make your screen look very special when your friends are looking at...
Jake
: No pink please!
Manu
: Oh. Then maybe this hyper dynamic and playful theme that makes all links on the page jump away each time you try to click on...
Jake
: Are you insane? Please, just give me something usable. If I want flashy game-like graphics, I can use High Score. If I want something dapper for my friends to look at, I can use Shiny. If I want cartoon characters hanging out here and there in my Gmail, I can use Zoozimps. I just want something dead simple.
Manu
: What about stripping the Gmail interface to the bare bones, like these two new themes, Basic Black and Basic White?
Jake
: That’s better. The dark one may be good for my eyes.
Manu
: Great! Do you have an Android phone?
Jake
: Yes.
Manu
: Then you may like this Android theme too. How about that?
Jake
: Nice! Some graphics but still subtle. Give me more.
Manu
: Relaxing tree tops? This one ain’t blinking.
Jake
: Not bad! What about something that would feel more handmade?
Manu
: You’re in luck, sir. I have this cool Marker theme in store for you. Very unprofessional.
Jake
: Nice — I’m gonna stick with this one for now.
Manu
: Good choice! See you next time for some more.
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