The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

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.”

See the original post:
Tip: Slice and dice your mail with search operators

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The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

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.

See original here: 
New in Labs: Inbox preview

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The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

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!

Read the original: 
New in Labs: Automatic message translation

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The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

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.

Go here to read the rest:
Import your mail and contacts from other accounts

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