Google’s Web-based email service, Gmail (gmail.google.com), has become enormously popular since its launch April 1, 2004. Microsoft has the greatest call to be concerned about people’s rush to Gmail, as earlier this year the email-switching service Return Path reported that 57% of users moving to Gmail were leaving behind Microsoft’s Hotmail, compared with just 27% who were switching from Yahoo! Mail. Storage seems to be a major key to Gmail’s success. At launch time, Gmail offered 1GB worth of storage, and Google increased the capacity to 2GB on the first anniversary of Gmail’s debut. Micro
soft and Yahoo! followed suit by increasing email service storage limits, but only paying subscribers to their premium services received comparable increases. Gmail is still technically a beta release and requires an invitation to use, but at least it’s free. Still, there are more benefits to using Gmail than not having to deal with warnings that your Inbox is getting full. In this article we offer tips to help you dig deep into the service and, we hope, introduce you to things you never knew you could do with Gmail. There are all sorts of addon applications for Gmail, as well as tricks that work specifically with the Firefox and Safari Web browsers, but we’ll save those for another time. We used Internet Explorer to test the following tips. Master Conversations & Stars Some of Gmail’s features are unique compared to other Web-based email services. The concept of conversations is one of them. Like its cousin, Google News (news.google.com), Gmail groups related items together. In Google News this gets kind of tricky, as Google must be able to determine how stories with different titles from a variety of sources are all alike. In Gmail the concept is simpler: The service groups together conversation threads so that rather than having to look for numerous separate messages, as you would in Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, or Outlook Express, you can look for a single entry that represents that conversation thread. A number in parentheses indicates how many email messages are included in the conversation. Click the conversation as you would a message to view the most recent message; click the Expand All link to view all the messages simultaneously. Another prominent Gmail-only feature has to do with stars. The service lacks Outlook’s flag system that lets you attach different colors of flags to messages you want to track or follow up with later on, but Gmail goes one better than Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail by allowing you to click a star icon associated with any number of messages. You can then click the Starred link on the left to access those messages. If you enabled keyboard shortcuts, you can simply press the S key to star or unstar a message, or press G and then S to view all of your starred messages. Create Labels & Filters To sort and keep track of your messages, it’s helpful to create special labels for them. In Gmail labels act like folders in other email programs. Click the Edit Labels link under Labels, type a name for the label in the Create A New Label box, and click Create. Create as many labels as you need. Now when you receive a message, you can select the appropriate label under Apply Label in the More Actions drop-down box displayed above the message. You can also apply a label to multiple messages by clicking the checkbox next to each message and then selecting a label as we described. To move labeled messages out of the Inbox, select them and click the Archive button; you can then access them by clicking the appropriate label under Labels on the left. Setting up filters makes Gmail assign certain labels to messages received from specific senders as soon as they arrive. To do this, click the Create A Filter link next to the Search The Web button and follow the instructions. Fill in whatever information you want to provide. If, for example, you at least indicate all or part of an email address in the From field and choose a label for messages fitting that criteria, that’s enough for Gmail to know what you want.
soft and Yahoo! followed suit by increasing email service storage limits, but only paying subscribers to their premium services received comparable increases. Gmail is still technically a beta release and requires an invitation to use, but at least it’s free. Still, there are more benefits to using Gmail than not having to deal with warnings that your Inbox is getting full. In this article we offer tips to help you dig deep into the service and, we hope, introduce you to things you never knew you could do with Gmail. There are all sorts of addon applications for Gmail, as well as tricks that work specifically with the Firefox and Safari Web browsers, but we’ll save those for another time. We used Internet Explorer to test the following tips. Master Conversations & Stars Some of Gmail’s features are unique compared to other Web-based email services. The concept of conversations is one of them. Like its cousin, Google News (news.google.com), Gmail groups related items together. In Google News this gets kind of tricky, as Google must be able to determine how stories with different titles from a variety of sources are all alike. In Gmail the concept is simpler: The service groups together conversation threads so that rather than having to look for numerous separate messages, as you would in Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, or Outlook Express, you can look for a single entry that represents that conversation thread. A number in parentheses indicates how many email messages are included in the conversation. Click the conversation as you would a message to view the most recent message; click the Expand All link to view all the messages simultaneously. Another prominent Gmail-only feature has to do with stars. The service lacks Outlook’s flag system that lets you attach different colors of flags to messages you want to track or follow up with later on, but Gmail goes one better than Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail by allowing you to click a star icon associated with any number of messages. You can then click the Starred link on the left to access those messages. If you enabled keyboard shortcuts, you can simply press the S key to star or unstar a message, or press G and then S to view all of your starred messages. Create Labels & Filters To sort and keep track of your messages, it’s helpful to create special labels for them. In Gmail labels act like folders in other email programs. Click the Edit Labels link under Labels, type a name for the label in the Create A New Label box, and click Create. Create as many labels as you need. Now when you receive a message, you can select the appropriate label under Apply Label in the More Actions drop-down box displayed above the message. You can also apply a label to multiple messages by clicking the checkbox next to each message and then selecting a label as we described. To move labeled messages out of the Inbox, select them and click the Archive button; you can then access them by clicking the appropriate label under Labels on the left. Setting up filters makes Gmail assign certain labels to messages received from specific senders as soon as they arrive. To do this, click the Create A Filter link next to the Search The Web button and follow the instructions. Fill in whatever information you want to provide. If, for example, you at least indicate all or part of an email address in the From field and choose a label for messages fitting that criteria, that’s enough for Gmail to know what you want.
