Category Archive: Gmail Tips

Welcome to Gmail Tips, your resource for Tips and Tricks for Google’s Web-based email client.

Jun
04

Gmail Tip #9: New Mail Notification!

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June 4, 2004

One often asked for feature has been some sort of automatic notification. Some suggestions ahve been integrating a button tn the Google Toolbar. Another was some sort of System Tray icon. Well, Gmail gave us a notification method that actually works very well…

Open your Gmail account and look at both the “Title” of your web browser as well as the “Button” in the Task Bar. It now shows something like “Gmail – Inbox (2)” where the “2″ is the number of new emails you have. Because Gmail auto-updates periodically, this will update was well. Very cool! This works in IE, FireFox, Safari, and maybe others.

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-9-new-mail-notification

Jun
03

Gmail Tip #8: Working With Lots Of Emails

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June 3, 2004

There are some idiosyncracies that you should understand when working with large numbers of messages. Read more for a couple pointers…

If you are working with a large number of emails, (more than will fit
on one screen “page”) be sure to remember that checking “All” doesn’t
check all messages in the category you are viewing, but only those
visible on the current page. So, if you have three pages of messages,
only the first page will be affected if you click “All”.

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-8-working-with-lots-of-emails

Jun
03

Gmail Tip #7: Quickly Addressing A Message

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June 3, 2004

Want to know a quick way to address another Gmail user? Read more to find out!

Did you know that you can send an email to another Gmail user by just
entering their username into either the TO, CC, or BCC fields when you
Compose a message? You do not need to type the rest of the
“@gmail.com” address! Simple end elegant!

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-7-quickly-addressing-a-message

Jun
03

Gmail Tip #6: Define a Signature!

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June 3, 2004

When Gmail was first released to Beta, it was missing the ability to create an automatically appended “Signature”. Well, after beta tester feedback Gmail has added the feature! Read how to define it…

Go into “Settings” and click the radio button next to the edit box in the Signatire section. Next, enter any text you want to have included in all outgoing messages! Makes things simpler and more professional!

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-6-define-a-signature

Jun
02

Gmail Tip #5: The Plus Side of Gmail

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June 2, 2004

Like many Email providers, Gmail supports the standard “plus” addressing scheme. But just what is it, and how can it help me?

The “plus” method of addressing lets you add additional words to your account name (the “left side” of your email address.) For example, if your email address is “john.doe@gmail.com”, you could add “+club” when you give your email address to members of a club to which you belong. So, your email address would now be “john.doe+club@gmail.com”. But why would you want to do this? Think of the “plus” word as an extra “keyword” or “tag” that you can use to better manage your messages.

Using our example, say you email an invitation to your friends in a club asking them to rsvp to the invitaion. You ask them to reply to “john.doe+nope@gtmail.com” when sending you a responseif they don’t want to come, and reply to “john.doe+ofcourse@gmail.com”. Assuming they follow your directions, You can then set up a Gmail Filters to automatically route emails to specific Labels based on the addresses. It’s a simple example, but the uses can be numerous.

Another use is when you are shopping online. When asked for an email address, use something like “john.doe+amazon@gmail.com”. That way, whenever you get future emails addressed to that address, you’ll know that it’s either from Amazon directly or from someone to whom they sold your email address. This can be a somewhat effctive way to track spam. Just be aware that not all email systems recognize or accept “plus” addresses. In fact, some spammers even strip it out completely, but it’s a cool tool, none the less. THe best way is to just try it and see if it works for your application!

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-5-the-plus-side-of-gmail

Jun
02

Gmail Tip #4: Formatting Your Name

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June 2, 2004

Gmail’s account names (you know, the “left” side of your email address) are very forgiving. Read more for more details!

If you registered your Gmail account name like I did, you likely used the form “first.last@gmail.com”. Did you know that it doesn’t matter if you used a period or not! “john.doe@gmail.com” is treated the same as “johndoe@gmail.com”. In fact, Gmail is not even case sensitive, so “JohnDoe@gmail.com” is the same as “joHn.doE@gmail.com”! So, not only did you get the email account name you wanted, but you really got more!

Any valid for also works at the login screen too! It surely makes remembering easier!

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-4-formatting-your-name

May
27

Gmail Tip #3: How to Maintain Notes

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May 27, 2004

Some email providers provide a “Notes” function to let you maintain a list of notes. For example you might keep Web site links, random thoughts, etc. Gmail doesn’t offer this feature, but by using some of Gmail’s other features, you can set up a very nice, easy to maintain group of notes…

Basically, the concept is to email yourself the notes, but Gmail lets you at least better organize and handle these emails. Here’s what you do:

First, create a Contact with a Name of “Notes” and an Email Address of “username+Notes@gmail.com”

Next, create a new Label called “Notes”

Finally, create a Filter to add the “Notes” Label any email addressed to “username+Notes@gmail.com”. Also, check the “Skip the Inbox (Archive it)” checkbox.

The effect is this:

When you email yourself from an email account other than your own Gmail account, address the email to “username+Notes@gmail.com”. When the message arrives in your Gmail account, it will automatically be archived into your “Notes” Label view, bypassing the Inbox. Nice and organized.

When you want to email yourself from your own Gmail account, click “Compose Email”, and just type “Notes” in the “To” field and hit “Tab” or “Enter”. Because you used the name “Notes” in the Contact, Gmail will fill in the email address automatically eliminating the need to enter a long address. Then, when you click send, the email gets sent to yourself, and is auto-archived in the Notes Label, just like above.

You now have a Label containing any notes you want to keep, and they are completely searchable!

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-3-how-to-maintain-notes

May
21

Gmail Tip #2: Check Your Messages

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May 21, 2004

To leverage Gmail’s excellent Label and Search functions, I imported close to 1000 archived emails into my Gmail account. (To see how I did it, click here.) After working this large number of messages for a few days, I have found that managing them, while typically easy and intuitive, it can sometimes be a bit cumbersome. Here is a tip to help you better manage your messages…

One neat feature of Gmail that may not be obvious at first is that Gmail “remembers” what emails you have “checked”. This means, for example, that if you use Gmail’s Search function to search for a message, if you “check” the message in the Search results view, when you then select a Label view or any other view that includes that email in its listing, the mesasge will be “pre-checked” for you! This makes tasks like removing Labels, trashing, etc. very easy. Not only is it “checked” but it is also highlighted in a different color making spotting it in a long list very easy.

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-2-check-your-messages

May
21

Gmail Tip #1: All About Labels

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May 21, 2004

Labels. Gmail lets you assign a Label to a message and then view all messages assigned to that Label. Sounds a lot like the typical “Folder”, right? Well, almost. Unlike Folders, you can assign multiple Labels to a message letting the message span multiple categories. To better understand how Labels differ from Folders, counsider the the real-world counterparts, and it should become clear.

Say you have a desk full of paper messages, some messages are from family members, and some are jokes that your friends have sent you. Using the Folder model to categorize the messages, you would create one folder called “Family” and one called “Jokes”. You would then look through the paper messages and file them accordingly. Simple and effortless. When you want to look for a message from your Father, you just look in the “Family” folder. But wait. One of the messages is from your Mother, AND it is a joke. Which folder do you file it in? That’s the dilema with Folders.

OK, back to the desk full of paper messages. Now, instead of having folders, say you have sheets of labels, some marked “Family” and some marked “Jokes”. You affix “Family” labels to all messages from your family, and you affix “Jokes” labels to all messages that are jokes. Your Mother’s message simply now has two labels on it. When you want to see all Family messages, you just grab all the messages that have “Family” labels. Some may also have “Jokes” labels, but you don’t care because you are interested in your Family messages. Likewise, when you grab all the messages labeled “Jokes”, some may also have “Family” labels, but again, you don’t care because you are looking at Jokes. Further, if you only want to look at jokes from your family, you grab only the messages with BOTH “Family” AND “Jokes” labels.

If you followed me this far, you should have absolutely no problem understanding Gmail’s Label concept. Because Gmail lets you assign multiple labels to a message, your filing dilema is solved! Just put one or more Labels on a message, and finding it later becomes much easier.

You can add a Label to a message in one of two ways:

1. If you are viewing a message listing, you can just click the checkbox next to the message, click on the “Apply label…” dropdown, and select the Label you want to apply. Gmail will display the Label just to the left of the message’s Subject.

2. If you are viewing a message, just click on the “Apply label…” dropdown, and select the label you want to apply. Gmail will display the new label to the right of the Subject line.

OK, you assigned a Label to a message, but at a later time, you want to remove it. How do you do that? Just select the Label view from the Labels box on the left, “select” the specific message by clicking the checkbox next to the message, and then click on the “Remove label ‘xxxx’” button at the top of the listing. Your label has now been removed! Simple and intuitive. But where did the message go? It’s no longer in the curernt view. If the message had one or more other Labels assigned, it will still show up in those Label views. If not, you will find it in the “All Mail” view.

Labels can be very useful and powerful once you break out of the Folder mindset.

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/gmail-tip-1-all-about-labels

May
20

How I Imported archived email into Gmail

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May 20, 2004

I have a large number (about 1000) of archived emails that I have saved over the years, and I am looking for a way to “import” them into Gmail so that I can leverage Gmail’s excellent Search and Label features. Over at the Gmail forum at Webmaster World is a posting on how to “import” emails into your Gmail account using Eudora. Well, I had some problems with Eudora, so I decided to use Outlook Express. Here’s the message that I posted…

Well, I spent some time last night “importing” all of my archived emails into Gmail, and it really wasn’t too bad. After several failed attempts with Eudora, I decided to go in a slightly different direction. The problems I was having with Eudora were two-fold:

1. Gmail kept giving me that “Relay” error”, so messages couldn’t be delivered. (I COULD re-direct manually, on message at-a-time, but for some reason, using the Filter gave me the “Relay” error. Go figure.)

2. I couldn’t figure out how to import .eml files into Eudora. If anyone has any suggestions to these, I would be most greatful…

That said, I decided to use Outlook Express instead. It really worked like a charm, with two major idiosyncracies:

1. OE uses whatever “Name” you set up in OE’s account properties as the “From” instead of the original email address. This is a HUGE advantage of Eudora–it retains the original address when you re-direct. This means that in Gmail, that name is what you see in the From column. More on this later.

2. OE uses the date you process as the email date, not the original email date, so that bit of data gets lost. I don’t know how Eudora handles this, but I think it’s the same as OE. To me, this was more of an annoyance than an issue.

End result? I now have almost 1100 emails in my Gmail account occupying 15MB (2%) of my space. The messages are now very easily searchable, labelable, and managable. Before I improted them into Gmail, there was simply no easy way to manage my old messages to find relevent information.

OK, so here’s how I did it using Outlook Express (OE):

First, I opened OE and created an email account that pointed to my primary POP3 provider. In the “Name” field, instead of using my full name as normal, I used “Archived”. This way, I can easily see that it’s an archived email. Gmail will display this in its “From” column. I also set the “Leave messages on server” function checked for safety–didn’t want to lose anything.

Next, I logged onto my Primary POP3 provider’s webmail account and moved all emails from various folders into my Inbox. This way, OE would simply retrieve all emails. Yes, I just lost the organization I had to all these messages, but I’ll take the time to use Gmail to quickly re-label them.

Next, I initiated a “Receive” in OE and retrieved all the emails from my POP3 provider. It retrieved about 650 emails.

I next went back to me Webmail account and moved all the messages into a “hold” folder clearing out my Inbox so that I wouldn’t re-retrieve them.

Next, I opened Windows Explorer and opened the folder that contained 310 old “.eml” files that I had previously archived offline. I highlighted them all and then simply drag-and-dropped them into OE’s Inbox. OE nicely imported them with all information (dates, original email addresses, etc.) intact. This simple task was something that I couldn’t get Eudora to do. If someone knows how, PLEASE let me know!.

I now 960 emails in my OE Inbox.

Side note: I found out that my particular POP3 provider won’t allow a “send” of more than 100 emails at-a-time, so I had to work with batches of 100 or less emails. So I created three folders in OE: “Hold”, “Temp”, and “Processed”. These would be my work folders. I then moved all the emails from the Inbox into the “Hold” folder.

Next, I created a “Message Rule” in OE that would look for all messages whose subject line DIDN’T contain a unique string forward those messages. I chose the string “{[!ThisWillNeverMatchAnything!]}” and I chose the email address of “jim.barr+import@gmail.com”.

I then moved batches of 100 emails from the Hold folder into the Temp folder, opened the message rule, and clicked “Apply Now”, browsed to the Temp folder and clicked “Go”. OE selected all the emails and began sending them. Once all were sent, I moved the emails in the Temp folder to the Processed folder. I then repeated this process for all emails. With 960 emails, this took some time.

OK, over to my Gmail account…. This resulted in 960 emails now in my Gmail Inbox view. All had a “From” address of “Archived”, and the email date was last night’s date. I next created a new Label called “Mail Archive” and did a Search on all emails that had a “From” of “Archived”. This way, I wouldn’t inadvertently select anything that might have come into my Inbox while I was “processing” all the “Archived” emails. I then proceeded to select “All”, then applied the label “Mail Archive”, and then selected “Archive” from Gmail’s “More Actions” dropdown. This really was tedious, because for some reason, despite setting Gmail to display 100 conversations at-a-time, Gmail only displays 20 conversations at-a-time in the Search results view. Yes, I know, I could have set up a Filter prior to doing this to auto-label and archive the messages, but I forgot…

Anyway, I now have a very clean and virtually empty Inbox and a new Label with 960 “archived” messages. Over time, I’ll simply apply additional Labels to the archived messages to better organize them. Yes, it’ll take time, but Gmail makes it so easy…

Now, if I just can figure out how to get past Eudora’s “Relay” issue as well as figuring out how to import “.eml” files, I wouldn’t hesitate trashing all the messages I imported last night and re-doing it letting Eudora apply the proper “From” name. But for now, I’m very satisfied with the results.

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/how-i-imported-archived-email-into-gmail

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