Official Gmail Blog
News, tips and tricks from Google's Gmail team and friends.
So, you want to be a Gmail ninja?
June 23, 2009
Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Marketing Manager
If you got 100 new messages, how long would it take you to get through them all? An hour? Five minutes? How would you find the important ones, reply to the ones that require an immediate reply, and mark the ones that you needed to take care of later? Would you use stars, filters, keyboard shortcuts, labels? What about Gmail Labs like tasks or canned responses?
Everybody has their own system for managing email, but some are definitely more efficient than others. Even if you only get a few messages a day, there are probably some simple things you can do to make it easier to get through your inbox and maybe even have a little fun along the way. We know time is valuable, so we asked lots of Googlers for their tips and tricks on how they make the most of Gmail, and we combined the best of these into a guide at
www.gmail.com/tips
, cheekily entitled "Become a Gmail Ninja." The tips are categorized into ninja belts (white, green, black and master
) based on how much mail you get each day.
For a handy reference that you can pin to your wall or keep on your desk, we even made a
printable version
of the guide where all the tips fit on one page front and back. And for the first 1024 of you who want them, we'll send a limited-edition, laminated guide for free. Just
fill out this form
with your address. Sorry, we can only ship to addresses in the US. If you're not one of the lucky 1024, you can still buy a laminated guide at
www.barcharts.com
.
If you're already a Gmail ninja and have your own tips you'd like to share,
let us know
and we'll add the best ones to the online guide.
*Our lawyers asked us to make sure it was clear that your contact information won't be maintained longer than necessary to send you the laminated guide and that this offer is "void where prohibited and only while supplies last."
Update (11:59am)
: Well, that was fast. We've run out of the free laminated guides, but if you weren't part of the first 1024 people to sign up, you can still can buy them for $1.25 at
www.barcharts.com/gmail
.
New fields for Gmail contacts and better importing too
June 16, 2009
Posted by Benjamin Grol, Product Manager
Up until now, Gmail only supported some contact fields. Whenever someone imported their contacts from apps like Outlook and OS X Address Book, we used to put fields Gmail didn't recognize into the contact's notes section. Based on feedback from you, we added support for more contact fields (like birthday and website) and now store each of these fields separately, which makes syncing and round-tripping your data work better. We
updated the standalone contact manager
with this improvement last month and now it's available in Gmail too, with support for Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail and Yahoo in CSV format, and OS X Address Book in vCard format.
With all your contact info in Gmail, you can access it from anywhere,
sync
your contacts to your mobile phone or other devices, and more easily
collaborate
on Google Docs and
invite
people to Calendar events. We're working hard to make Gmail contacts even more useful, so please keep the
feedback
coming.
Tip: Check and reply from multiple email addresses in Gmail
June 12, 2009
Posted by Joyce Sohn, Product Marketing Manager
It's that time of year when students are graduating, and in many cases getting yet another email address to check — an alumni account — as a graduation present.
Whether you have an alumni address, a work account, or your own domain that you like to use, rather than logging in and out of multiple accounts, you can set yourself up so all your mail ends up in your Gmail inbox. And you can send mail from any of the other addresses you own right from Gmail as well.
There are two steps to make this happen:
1. Set up mail forwarding or fetching
Many email providers offer free auto-forwarding to other accounts. Log into your non-Gmail account and set your Gmail address as the forwarding target. If your other account doesn't offer forwarding but supports
POP3
access, you can use
Mail Fetcher
in Gmail to automatically check your other account for new mail and download it to Gmail.
2. Set up custom "From:"
Gmail's custom "From:" feature lets you send mail with one of your other email addresses listed as the sender in place of your Gmail address. There's a good
step-by-step
for how to set this up in the Help Center, but the basics are adding the address you want to use and then verifying that it belongs to you. Once you have your custom "From:" set up, you can pick which address you want to reply from in the "From:" address drop down while composing messages.
P.S. If you're a recent grad and want more tips on how to use Google during this transition period, check out the Google for Students Blog, where we'll be posting
more tips like this
weekly for the next couple months.
Like puzzles? Get ready for the Day in the Cloud Challenge on June 24th
June 11, 2009
Posted by Corey Anderson, Software Engineer (and puzzle creator)
Flying 500 miles per hour at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, it always seemed odd that I could use approved electronic devices, but I couldn't get online to chat or send an email. Luckily, the Wright brothers have been catching up with
the cloud
, and airlines like
Virgin America
have rolled out in-flight WiFi across their fleet.
To celebrate, we've teamed up with Virgin America to provide complimentary WiFi on all flights on June 24th, and we're co-hosting a timed online scavenger hunt called the
Day in the Cloud Challenge
. Whether you're going to be in the air or on the ground on that day,
you're invited
to participate in the challenge and can sign up at
www.dayinthecloud.com
.
If you use Gmail, there's a good chance you already have a leg up because some of the questions will involve your knowledge of Gmail (plus, you'll need a
Google Account
to play). To give you a little practice, we've just revealed some
practice questions
.
Curious how some people are getting ready for the challenge? Check out this video:
Tip: Slice and dice your mail with search operators
June 4, 2009
Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Marketing Manager
My friends email me all the time with ideas for improving Gmail. Just this weekend, my friend Dave said he wanted a way to select all of his messages with a certain label (like "urgent"). Two weeks ago, Adam came up with the idea of a button that would filter his inbox to only show unread items. Good ideas, but it turns out that doing stuff like this (and much more) is already possible using
search operators
.
For example, Dave would just need to search for "
in:urgent
" to get all items labeled "urgent," and Adam would just search for "
is:unread in:inbox
" to see all the unread messages in his inbox.
Here are a few other useful ways to filter your inbox:
"
to:me is:starred
" shows all messages sent directly to you that are starred
"
is:chat from:heather
" shows all chat conversations you had with Heather
"
is:starred -in:inbox
" shows all your starred messages that aren't in your inbox (a good way to find anything important that you might have accidentally archived)
"
from:elliot filename:pdf
" shows all messages from Elliot that have a pdf attachment
We've written about search operators here before, but lots of people find them hard to remember. That's why we built
Search Autocomplete
in Gmail Labs, designed to make searching in Gmail much easier. Instead of having to remember the exact syntax for advanced searches, you can just start typing, and search autocomplete will help you fill in the rest. If you find yourself doing some of the same searches over and over again, consider creating a permanent link to them using
Quick Links
in Labs.
Update (6/10)
: Revised the example about searching for a label to use "urgent" instead of "important."
New in Labs: Inbox preview
May 21, 2009
Posted by Peter Balsiger, Software Engineer
Whenever I open up my inbox at work, I'm never surprised to find several new messages waiting to be read. The same thing can't always be said about my personal Gmail account. Sometimes I end up checking my mail only to find nothing new there.
No big deal, really. But now imagine that you access Gmail on a super slow connection from a remote place in Ethopia where it might take minutes to completely load your inbox. The disappointment is larger when you find out that there is nothing new to read and you could have saved all that time.
To ease this pain a bit, we created a new feature in Gmail Labs called Inbox Preview. While Gmail is loading, a simple, static preview of your inbox with your ten most recent messages is displayed. Turn it on from the
Labs tab under Settings
, and if you're on a slow connection you'll know from the start if it's worth the wait.
New in Labs: Automatic message translation
May 19, 2009
Posted by Darren Lewis, Software Engineer
Back in the early days of human existence, before language had fully developed, our caveman ancestors probably did a lot of grunting. Language, and thus life, were pretty simple: watch out for that saber-toothed tiger ("Blorg! AIYA!!!"); stop riding the wooly mammoth and help me pick some berries ("Argh. Zagle zorg!"); man, it's cold in this Ice Age ("Brrrr.").
Somewhere along the line, all those grunts diverged into thousands of distinct languages, and life became both richer and more complicated. And for the last few eons or so, we've struggled to communicate in a multilingual world. Which brings us to today. Since the heart and soul of Gmail is about helping people communicate, I'm proud to announce the integration of Google's
automatic translation technology
directly into Gmail.
Simply enable "Message Translation" from the
Labs tab under Settings
, and when you receive an email in a language other than your own, Gmail will help you translate it into a
language you can understand
. In one click.
If all parties are using Gmail, you can have entire conversations in multiple languages with each participant reading the messages in whatever language is most comfortable for them. It's not quite the
universal translators
we're so fond of from science fiction, but thanks to
Google Translate
, it's an exciting step in the right direction. I use this feature everyday to help me work with teammates around the globe (they think my Japanese is much better than it really is...shhhh!).
Whether you're reading a family update from inlaws on the other side of the world, working with a multinational team, or just trying to
bring about world peace
, don't worry, Gmail's got your back.
Till next time, adiós, またね, tchau, and 再見!
Import your mail and contacts from other accounts
May 13, 2009
Posted by Chad Parry, Gmail Engineer
Gmail users can be a passionate bunch. Many of us have, at one time or another, encouraged or cajoled friends and family to join us @gmail.com. But switching email accounts can be pretty painful. It's like getting out of a relationship. You have so much baggage — years of emails and contacts, memories of past Christmases and Valentine's Days — so the easier your new email account can make it, the better. My wife flirted with the idea for two years before she finally took the plunge with Gmail. The reason she finally made the switch might also convince your friends that it's a good time to adopt a shiny new Gmail address.
Gmail now migrates email and contacts from other email providers, including Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, and
many more
. It's much easier to make the transition now that you can bring along all your old email and contacts. You can even have your messages forwarded from your old account for 30 days, giving you time to take Gmail for a test drive while you make up your mind.
This new feature is available in all newly-created Gmail accounts, and it is slowly being rolled out to all existing accounts. It'll take longer than the few hours or days that most Gmail features take to get out to everyone. You'll know it's on for your account when you see the Accounts and Import tab (formerly just called Accounts) under Settings. Sorry, businesses and schools using Google Apps won't see these new migration options.
Everyone can still use
POP3 mail fetching
and
upload your contacts in a CSV file
, but this new way is much simpler for basic imports. And we like it when you can access and move your data the way you want — it's been easy to
auto-forward
all your Gmail messages to any other service, and now it's a little easier to go the other direction too.
Tasks, now in Calendar too
May 13, 2009
Posted by Garry Boyer, Software Engineer
Ever since we launched
Google Calendar
, people in our forum have been pretty vocal about a missing piece -- an integrated task list. "To-do would be tooo-rific," "I really, really, really need to use a to-do list," and my favorite: "I'll join your team to help you get it done!" The rumble turned into a roar a few months ago when we
launched Tasks in Gmail Labs
. Now we've integrated Tasks into Google Calendar as well.
To get started, open Calendar and click on the "Tasks" link on the left hand side. You'll see the familiar task list you're used to using in Gmail, with some Calendar-specific additions:
Tasks that have due dates will automatically appear on your calendar. To create a task with a due date in Calendar, click on an empty space in month view or the all-day section of week view, and be sure select the "Task" option.
To attach a due date to an existing task, click the right-arrow from within the task list, and then click on the calendar icon.
You can modify a task's due date by dragging it to a different date, just as you would with a regular calendar event.
To mark a task completed from within Calendar, just click on the task's checkbox. (Isn't that satisfying, overachievers?)
To keep track of due dates before they arrive, there's a nifty new "Sort by due date" feature available in the Actions menu at the bottom of your task list. While sorting by due date, you can reschedule a task by clicking on it in your list, then pressing control and the up or down arrow key.
While working to help bring this feature to you, I used it to keep track of my own tasks. Now I can finally check off the last one in that list: "write blog post." Phew.
Create your Google Profile
May 6, 2009
Posted by Peter Chane, Product Manager
We recently
announced
that Google profile results now appear at the bottom of U.S. name-query search pages. Creating a profile gives you greater control over what people find when they search for your name on Google. Your profile can include online photos, links to your blog or other online profiles, and ways for people to contact you -- and you can restrict contact information like your address and phone number to only the people and groups you choose.
When creating a profile, you have the option to use your Gmail username as a your profile URL (profiles.google.com/yourusername), so it's easier to remember and share. Some examples:
http://profiles.google.com/mattcutts
http://profiles.google.com/felicia.day
If you want people to be able to contact you, but don't want to reveal your email address to the world, you can hide your username and use a 24 digit number instead. Turn on the 'Send a message' feature, and anyone with a Google Account can send you a message through your profile, without having your email address revealed to them.
Don't have a profile? Go to
www.google.com/profiles
to get started.
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