Tag Archive: message

Sep 09

New in Labs: Play Google Voice messages in Gmail

Categories:

Gmail Tips, Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

September 9, 2009

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

Posted by Vincent Paquet, Google Voice Product Manager

Google Voice helps you manage your communications with a unique phone number that rings all your existing phones, a single voicemail inbox with online access and automated transcription, and lots of handy features like the ability to block spammy calls and easily record personalized greetings for your callers. Think of it as Gmail for your phone calls and text messages (watch this video to learn more). Google Voice is currently available via invitation, which you can request here.

For those of you who already use Google Voice, you’re probably used to receiving voicemail notifications via email. A couple of minutes after someone leaves a voicemail on your Google Voice number, you’ll receive an email showing who called, an automated transcript of the voicemail, and a link to play the message. You can click the link to listen to the message right from your computer.

Previously, clicking “Play message” opened a new page in your browser, but starting today, you can play voicemails right in Gmail. Just turn on the Google Voice player from the Gmail Labs tab under Settings and whenever you get a voicemail notification, the player will appear right below the message itself.


Best of all, your message status will stay synced: messages played from Gmail will appear as read in your Google Voice inbox and won’t be played again when you check new messages via your phone. If you already use Google Voice, try it out and let us know what you think. If you don’t have a Google Voice account yet, sign up for an invitation and we’ll get you one ASAP.

Go here to see the original:
New in Labs: Play Google Voice messages in Gmail

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/new-in-labs-play-google-voice-messages-in-gmail

Mar 19

New in Labs: Undo Send

Categories:

Official Gmail News

by Jim

March 19, 2009

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

Posted by Michael Leggett, User Experience Designer

Sometimes I regret sending a message the morning after. Other times I send a message and then immediately notice a mistake. I forget to attach a file or email the birthday girl that I can’t make her surprise party. I can rush to close my browser or unplug the Internet — but Gmail almost always wins that race.

An email to the wrong Larry pushed me over the edge. I could undo just about any other action in Gmail — why couldn’t I undo send? Many people agreed, including Yuzo Fujishima, an engineer in the Tokyo office. My theory (which others shared) was that even just five seconds would be enough time to catch most of those regrettable emails.

And now you can do just that. Turn on Undo Send in Gmail Labs under Settings, and you’ll see a new “Undo” link on every sent mail confirmation. Click “Undo,” and we’ll grab the message before it’s sent and take you right back to compose.

This feature can’t pull back an email that’s already gone; it just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the panic button. And don’t worry – if you close Gmail or your browser crashes in those few seconds, we’ll still send your message.

I’ve had Undo Send turned on for a while and it’s saved me several times. Let us know if it saves you too.

Go here to see the original:
New in Labs: Undo Send

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/official-gmail-news/new-in-labs-undo-send

Mar 18

New in Labs: YouTube, Picasa, Flickr and Yelp previews

Categories:

Official Gmail News

by Jim

March 18, 2009

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

Posted by Vishal Kasera, Software Engineer

My email is full of links: my friends send around YouTube videos to try and get a laugh, we share Picasa and Flickr albums with photos from last weekend’s camping trip, and we email around the Yelp reviews of restaurants we’re considering going to next Friday night.

The truth is, I’m pretty lazy. That’s why I like YouTube previews in Gmail chat — why open a new tab when I can watch the video my friend sent me right there? Gmail currently automatically detects package tracking information, addresses, and event information and shows quick links to delivery status, maps and directions, and Google Calendar. So why couldn’t Gmail automatically detect links in emails and show videos, photos, and ratings right inside these messages as well?

We built some new Gmail Labs features that do just that. For our first set, we picked stuff that often shows up in email: YouTube videos, Picasa and Flickr links, and Yelp reviews. Turn on Picasa previews from the Labs tab under Settings, and rather than having to click on a Picasa album link to see the photos it contains, you can see photos right in the message itself:

Same for Flickr:

Enable Youtube previews, and you can watch YouTube videos from inside your email:

And whenever you receive a Yelp link in an email, Yelp previews show you ratings, phone numbers, and other listing information right there:

Give them a try and send us your thoughts. If you work on a product that would lend itself to a great preview in Gmail, we’d love to hear from you too.

See more here: 
New in Labs: YouTube, Picasa, Flickr and Yelp previews

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/official-gmail-news/new-in-labs-youtube-picasa-flickr-and-yelp-previews

Mar 17

A small (but helpful) change to ‘mark as unread’

Categories:

Official Gmail News

by Jim

March 17, 2009

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

Posted by David de Kloet, Software Engineer

Gmail’s threaded conversations are useful because they keep your messages in context — you don’t have to look for previous messages to see what people are talking about. But sometimes, when many people are replying to the same conversation, you open a conversation and quickly wish you hadn’t because you don’t have time to read all the new messages right then.

You could mark the conversation as unread, but this makes all the messages in that conversation unread. And the next time you open the conversation you have to remember which messages you already read and which ones you didn’t get to yet. Since we at Google send and receive a lot of email, we found this pretty annoying. So we decided to fix it.

Now if you’re reading a conversation that had unread messages when you opened it and you mark it unread, Gmail will only mark those messages that were unread when you opened the conversation in the first place. It’s a small change, but it’s the little things that can make a UI feel right or wrong, and we hope this makes Gmail a little bit more right.

Though we realize this change would also be useful when reading mail on your phone (people mark stuff unread on their phones so they’ll remember to come back to it on their computers), for now it only works on your desktop browser.

Original post: 
A small (but helpful) change to ‘mark as unread’

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/official-gmail-news/a-small-but-helpful-change-to-mark-as-unread