Gmail Tips – The Complete Collection

Wow! Something’s new! Yep, after a few years, I decided to migrate from Joomla to WordPress as my back-end site software. I find it to be better for my needs, so I hope that it will let me provide more timely and more frequent content. Second, I have included an…

Gmail is a free POP3 and IMAP webmail service provided by Google. In the United Kingdom and Germany it is officially called Google Mail. Gmail launched on 1 April 2004 as an invitation-only beta release and became available to the public on 7 February 2007. To this day the service…

The other day, I received an “invitation” to beta test Google’s new “Gmail” email service. After having tried and used literally dozens of web-based email services over the years, I decided to see what the buzz was all about, so I followed the Invitation instructions, and within a couple minutes,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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”…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

Conversations are very handy. They group related emails letting you easily track what was sent and to whom it was sent. One thing that you might overlook is that is that you need to remember that when you perform an action on a conversation such as “Print”, “Move to Trash”,…

Unlike many other Web-based email providers, Gmail offers an SSL-encrypted login by default. This means that your Gmail password is always encrypted when it is sent over the Internet. Secure HTTPS access is also available by going to https://gmail.google.com directly. This is just another way that Gmail ensures your privacy…

One concept that’s sometimes a bit unclear to new Gmail users is that of “Archiving” messages. I’m not refering to the hype and false assertions of pundits who claim things like “Gmail keeps everything you ever send and receive!” and “Gmail archives your messages forever!” No, I’m refering to the…

I covered this partially in another tip, but I feel it is important to repeat it. One of Gmail’s excellent features is its “Conversations”. Conversations conveniently organize related messages, but this can be potentially dangerous if you don’t understand how to manage both conversations and individual messages. If you aren’t…

When you “send” a message, two things happen to it: 1. it gets copied into your “All Mail” view, and 2. it is visible in the “Sent Mail” view. Many email clients and Webmail services let you optionally delete all sent messages by default, but Gmail doesn’t offer this feature.…

Looks like Gmail added a new feature! You can now control “highlighting” of searched words in Search results!When you initiate a Search, Gmail returns a list of any messages and conversations matching the Search criteria. You can select any of these messages or conversations to view, and Gmail automatically highlights…

Looks like Gmail added another new feature! You now have the option of viewing or downloading image attachments! Read on for details… When you receive an image file as an attachment (like .jpg, .gif, or .bmp) Gmail now displays two links for each attachment: One is the filename, and the…

Gmail has some advanced searching capabilities that, if you take the time to learn, enables you drill down to very specific information. In future tips, you’ll learn many of the advanced searching functions, but in this tip, (sent in by “Juan Valera”) you’ll learn how to search for specific messages…

ATTENTION REGISTERED USERS!! It’s time to turn the tables a bit here. Here’s a chance for Registered Users to give your opinion! I’m interested to know your opinion if Gmail, instead of being an online service, was a PC-based email client that you downloaded onto your PC that worked either…

One very important note to Gmail users: Gmail’s “Forward” function only forwards plain text. While this doesn’t affect most messages, this behavior can mangle HTML-formatted messages, dropping important formatting, images, and data. Read on for more information…If you receive a message that has fancy formatting and/or includes inline graphics, when…

One of Gmail’s excellent features is its Search function. Searching can be as simple as entering a keyword or two into the Search field at the top of any page to very complex using Gmail’s advanced “Query Words” to better constrain searches. Read more to better understand how “Query Words”…

Gmail is trying to help combat the spread of viruses by implementing a “feature” that prevents emails containing attachments of certain file types from being delivered to Gmail accounts. With some simple workarounds, you can get your files delivered to Gmail users while still helping prevent the spread of viruses…One…

Want to know what features and bugs the Gmail developers are currently working on? Read on to learn how to access Gmail’s new “Features, Fixes, & Feedback” page…First, log into your Gmail account. You must be logged into your account to access the help screens. Next, click on the “Help”…

In an earlier tip, I briefly explained how to perform Advanced Searching using Gmail’s “query words”. Here are two practical examples of how to use the “label:” query word to search for Multi-Labeled messages as well as Un-Labeled messages. Thanks to “rishid” on the GmailForums for submitting this tip…Say you…

One of Gmail’s “features” can leave you with extra entries in your Contacts list. Read on for more information… Gmail has a (debatably) nice feature that automatically adds to your Contacts list the email addresses of those to whom you send emails. While this can be helpful at times, just…

Once again, the hard working Gmail Developers have implemented yet another much-requested feature: Import Contacts! Read on for more details… For the best explanation of just how to Import Contacts, log into your Gmail account, click on Contacts, and click on the new “Import Contacts” link at the top of…

Want a quick and easy way to view all of your "Unread" messages? Here’s a neat tip submitted by Mark Worsham describing how…If you have assigned Labels and archived unread messages, finding them later can sometines be challenging. Simply create a Gmail Label named "Unread", and you will see all…