8 posts tagged “hacks”
The odds and ends...
Searching. A basic feature of Gmail that allows you to search through your e-mails as if you're searching the Internet for something, using the Google search-engine. If you're interested in really exploring how to perform advanced searches, click here.
Keyboard Shortcuts. I prefer to use the mouse as little as possible. For me it is quicker to do what I want using keys on the keyboard, whether I'm cutting-and-pasting some text in a document or reading and replying to an e-mail. Google enables keyboard shortcuts by default; pressing certain keys will allow you to manipulate your e-mails. Google's Help Article on the subject is confusing, so click here to view a simplified, cleaner list of what the keyboards do. It might sound more complicated, at first, but trust me...you figure it out quick and it saves constant reaching for and moving of the mouse when all you have to do is press a key or two to go to your inbox, read, archive, or reply to e-mails.
Mute. Have you ever been included in a mass e-mail and had everyone keep replying to the entire group and you had no interest in the conversation? Well now you can mute conversations, so that while you'll still receive the e-mails, they'll never pop-up in your inbox to disturb you. Search for the details on Google Help.
That's all. If you read all eight posts, you're a better person than I, because it was quite long. I likely could write more, but I'm rather tired after writing all of these. Again, if you have questions, suggestions, or comments, shoot me an e-mail (alquitos@gmail.com). If I need to write more posts in the future to answer common questions, address an issue in further detail, or talk about other features of Gmail, than I will. But for not, that's all!
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Consolidate. Pretend.
Google allows you to send e-mail from other e-mail addresses. That is, if you want to do work from your personal e-mail address -- perhaps because Gmail has more storage space and better management features than your other e-mail addresses -- you can go into your account settings and add other e-mail account that you use (settings in the upper right, then the accounts tab).
Google will send an e-mail to the address you specify to verify that you do own the e-mail address. Once confirmed, you will be able to send as another e-mail address. That is, you might be using Gmail, but to whoever receives your e-mail, it will appear as work@work.com.
If you direct your other e-mail program(s) to forward your mail to Gmail, you can use Gmail to consolidate all your e-mails and work from one centralized, easy to use interface with all the advantages of Gmail. And through the use of filters and labels, you can keep things distinctly separate.
No longer do you have to login to multiple e-mail websites or computers!
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Unlimited e-mail addresses! Find-out who is selling your information!
Gmail supports plus-addressing. That is, you can add a plus sign and any text after your username, but before the @-sign, and it will be delivered. What does this allow you to do?
You can (essentially) create unlimited e-mail addresses. For instance, my e-mail address is alquitos@gmail.com. But using plus-addressing, I can have any number of e-mail addresses: alquitos+social@gmail.com, alquitos+txt@gmail.com, alquitos+spam@gmail.com. In fact, I use each of those addresses (and many more).
"Uhm...OK. ...What's the point?"
For starters, you can use it to better manage filters. In the previous post I'd written a tip explaining how to use filters to do something like forward an e-mail to your phone? To make that easier, for those who need to communicate quickly, sending an e-mail to alquitos+txt@gmail.com automatically forwards to my phone (because of the filter I set up). When registering on social networking websites, using alquitos+social@gmail.com means any e-mails I get related to being a member of the site means are automatically labeled "Social Sites" (courtesy another filter). These sorts of things save time and effort.
Another benefit is that because you can set up unique addresses, you could give every site you join a unique address (whatever+amazon@gmail.com, whatever+ebay@gmail.com, whatever+whatever@gmail.com). And then should you notice a sudden increase in spam, simply look at who it's sent to. If you see whatever+somegamewebsiteyoujoined@gmail.com, than you know that the game site you joined is selling your address to spammers. Then you know who to direct your wrath at!
And if you happen to know (or strongly suspect) being compelled to register with a website will result in spam, you can create a throwaway address. In my case, if I'm in this situation I use alquitos+spam@gmail.com which goes directly to my trash (courtesy a filter).
Note: Despite the fact plus-addressing is part of the specs, a number of websites do not support using or registering e-mail addresses with the plus-sign in them. You should e-mail them and tell them they're violating the standards listed in RFC 2822 and the recommendations in RFC 3696 and need to pull their heads out of wherever they're stowed and change their systems. You don't have to know what it means, just tell them. Because I can't help you if a site doesn't.
The Period Kind Of Works The Same: You may wish to note that the period works in a similar way. That is, you can insert a period anywherre in the username portion of your e-mail address, and you'll still get it: alquitos@gmail.com, al.quitos@gmail.com, and alquito.s@gmail.com are all the same as far as Gmail is concerned. However, not every site considers it the same. So, if registering, with a site that doesn't support plus-addressing, try using a period. I use alquito.s@gmail.com in the same way I use alquitos+spam@gmail.com for websites that do not support plus-addressing (the separated 's' is for spam, heh); through the magic of spam, it goes straight to the trash.
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Now we get to the fun stuff...
Set Up Filters
So you have some basic labels set up. Or at least know how to. And that's awesome. But if you get a lot of e-mails, it can be tedious to manually apply filters to a bunch of e-mails. So you may want to take advantage of Gmail's filters. Filters allow you to tell Gmail to do certain things automatically with new mail. One of the many things you can do with filters -- and I won't discuss them all, or this entry would be ridiculously-long -- is to automatically label e-mails that come-in.
(Take this as a) For instance, I have bank statements e-mailed to me monthly. But I don't care to see them. So I set up a filter that tells Gmail that if I get any e-mail from 'account.statements@mybank.com' to automatically label such e-mails with the "Finance" label, mark them as read, and archive them. I never see them when I do not want to, but they're always there (and tken care of) should I need to review them. To edit your filters, click "Settings" in the upper-right corner of your browser window, then click the "Filters" tab and have at it (start by "Create a new filter").
Mobile Goodness Tip: One use for filters I have is to forward certain e-mails to my cell phone as a text message. If I am expecting something or have an urgent issue -- or an issue I just need to stay abreast of -- I need to be made aware of when I'm away from the desk, I set up a filter to forward to my cell phone as a text message.
For instance, if I need to be made aware of any issues involving bears (they're dangerous!), I create a filter with "bears" in the "Has the words:" field, and select the forward option, entering the appropriate information. For instance, my phone carrier, Sprint PCS allows e-mails to be sent to my phone as text messages if they're addressed as such (say, 1234567890@pm.sprintpcs.com). So, this tip is only useful to those who use text-messaging and who's mobile phone service provider allows you to receive text-meassages sent to an e-mail address.
Advanced Filters Tip: When creating filters, you may notice that when you set up a filter, adding information in multiple fields results in filters that don't seem to catch all of the e-mails. That is because each condition is connected with an AND operator, not an OR operator. Is that Greek?
Say, for example, I need to set up a filter that applied a label called "food" to any e-mail coming from "recipes@recipes.com" or containing the word "cheese". If I enter "recipes@recipes.com" in the "from:" field and "cheese" in the "Has the words:" field, only e-mails that contained the word "cheese" AND came from "recipes@recipes.com" would be labeled "food". Since I take food seriously, this is not really what I want!
Your first instinct might be to say, "that's fine, I'll just create two filters -- one for each condition." Well I'm here to tell you that's silly! At least, I consider it a sloppy way to handle it. "Fine, Mr. Smart-Guy," you might reply, "how can you make a better filter?" That's simple enough. You include both conditions in the "Has the words:" field.
So if I wanted to catch and label any e-mail coming from "recipes@recipes.com" or containing the word "cheese", I put the following into the "Has the words:" field: (from:(recipes@recipes.com) OR (cheese)) ...that is, inside one set of parenthesis, I put in other conditions, each in their own parenthesis (and in the case of indicating the field, butt it up against the left parenthetical, leaving no space). This should work with any condition.
And if that's entirely too confusing, just forget what I said and use multiple filters.
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A special note...
About The Star
You are able to star an e-mail in the same way as you label any other e-mails. The star is simply another label. But with the added ease of simply clicking a little star. But once you begin to use labels, you may find little use for the star. Or even wonder what the point of having the star is.
Matt has a good idea for making use of the star feature:
I like this idea quite a lot -- it is very positive and feel-good. And I'm all about the feel-goods.I decided to use stars to highlight good news that comes in.I've found that this practice helps me counteract bad news, and encourages an active focus on the positive. Plus, the act of clicking the star is pleasing, somewhat like that feeling of checking off a next action or finishing a project.
I use the star in another manner. I use Google's Mobile Gmail to check my e-mail on my cell phone when I'm away from my computer. But sometimes it can be tricky to easily label e-mails in this manner.
So if I'm reading my e-mails on the road, I use the star to quickly highlight e-mails I need to label (or otherwise follow-up on) when I next return to my computer. And then I clean-out the inbox. (What're my three rules? Especially important when viewing your e-mail on a mobile device.) The e-mails are nicely set aside in the Starred-view and waiting for my management at a time when I'm able to give them the attention they need.
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Labels Rule, Files Drool
Use Labels
The question I hear the most, to new Gmail-ers, is, "how do I file my e-mails into folders instead of letting them sit in my inbox?" The short, un-helpful answer one is bound to hear from me is, "you can't." That's because folders are old school -- and not in the good way. Gmail doesn't use folders -- instead they use "labels".
Labels function as tags do on many other websites, for finding and organizing content, such as YouTube (videos), del.icio.us (bookmarks), Flickr (photo-sharing), and many blogging websites (including this site, Vox). There are advantages for using labels (or tags, if you prefer the term) instead of folders when it comes to organizing your e-mails.
One advantage is that this structure is more flexible. Folders are limiting, in that if you have an e-mail that fits into multiple categories, you are forced to pick one category/file to put your e-mail. Say you get an e-mail from your bank showing the interest earned on a mutual fund. Normally you might file this under "Finances," but tax season is approaching and you have a folder set up for "Tax stuff" for information that will allow you to more easily complete your taxes this year (unlike last year where you frantically searched for needed information the day before taxes were to be filed). With folders you have to pick a folder that's most appropriate. With labels, you can tag your e-mails with all appropriate labels.
Another advantage is that if you change the way you organize your e-mails and choose to delete a label, any e-mails associated with that label will not be deleted -- that particular label is instead removed from your e-mail. And your e-mails are still there!
So labels are great with organization. When looking at an e-mail, the labels applied to this e-mail are visible on the top of the e-mail. In other views, when looking at a list of e-mails, you can tell at-a-glance what e-mails are labelled. Look at the image at the beginning of this post -- see the green-colored text to the left of the e-mail subject lines? This tells you what labels have been applied to specific e-mails.
"But how does help your productivity?"
Because I label e-mails that are pending reply, pending actions, and items or issues I need to follow-up on. Look at the labels section of the image above (in the left column). If I get an e-mail that I need to reply to, I label it "! Pending Reply" (the exclamation point lists it at the top of the otherwise alphabetized list), mark it as un-read, then archive it (clean out the damned inbox). When you have unread e-mails in other views, Gmail bolds the label in the list and adds a number, indicating the number of "un-read" e-mails with that label. Using this method, I can tell (at-a-glance) that I have two e-mails I need to reply to. And they don't clutter-up my inbox!
Now, this is the method I use. You may find another method that works for you. But I find this works well and suspect you will too. Give it a shot.
A note on labels: Labels are internal only, simply for your convenience. That is, if you label an e-mail, only you will be able to see that label. Forwarding, replying to, or printing an e-mail does not include any labels you have associated with the e-mail. So feel free to freely apply that "Annoying Airheads" label to e-mails from applicable persons -- they won't be tipped-off to what you really think when you reply to their e-mails with the utmost courtesy.
A lesser-known fact about labels: Every e-mail has labels applied to it. Labels in your inbox are labelled "inbox," for instance and even e-mails with no labels attached are labelled as "unlabelled". This is typically transparent to the end-user, however, and is simply a result of how the system is designed. (It's beneficial, too, if you're looking for e-mails that have not been labelled.)
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So the first thing I will cover is taming the beast that is a overflowing inbox.
Clean-Out The Inbox
I have three rules for managing my inbox:
- If I do not need to read an e-mail now, it should not be in my inbox.
- If I have already responded to an e-mail, it should not be in my inbox.
- If an e-mail comes from a known source (a person, my bank, a retailer or mailing list that sends me mail more often than once every few months) it should be labeled automatically. (I will cover labels in the next part of this series.)
The first thing you need to do is clean-out that inbox. Gmail offers over 2 GB of storage space, so you likely won't need to delete any e-mails. Instead, you can "archive" your e-mails -- they'll always be around. Take a peek at the image above -- in the top bar you'll see a button that "Archive".
When you are reading an e-mail or have multiple e-mails selected (check the checkboxes) in your inbox, clicking this button will take the e-mail out of your inbox and save it out of your way. Any e-mails you've received can be found again by clicking the "All Mail" link in the left navigation area or searching for it in the search bar on top, which allows you to search through all of your mail in the same way you can use Google to search for stuff on the Internet.
What if you don't want to save an e-mail? Use the drop-down box in the top bar to select delete. You can do this while reading the e-mail, or when you have selected e-mails in your inbox (check the checkbox). Gmail has excellent spam filters, but in the event something slips through and ends-up in your inbox, the top bar also contains a button to mark something as spam.
Spam & Trash: You can view received spam or trash by clicking the appropriate link on the left navigation bar. Items that are marked spam or trash are deleted automatically after 30 days, and do not count against your total storage space, so you do not need to worry about this. But if you accidentally tag an e-mail as spam or trash, you can go to the appropriate view and restore it to your inbox. And you can choose to (manually) delete all mail in these views, if you wish.
A word of caution on checkboxes: Any action you perform on mail that you have marked the checkbox on will be applied to all e-mails in the current view with a checkbox marked. So if you have just finished doing something to an e-mail, and that e-mail remains visible and checked when you go to do something else to another e-mail, be sure to un-check that e-mail unless you wish the next action to be applied to that e-mail as well. Most actions can be un-done, fortunately, with the exception of permanent deletion in the Trash and Spam views.
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It's no secret: I love Gmail (Google's free e-mail service). And I don't waste an opportunity to let people know this and encourage them to make the switch. But few people make the switch to Gmail and immediately understand how to use some of the features of Gmail.
Overview
Clicking on the image below will show you what my gmail account looks like when I'm logged-in.
Yours may look slightly different (colors, layout, differing
features). But it all works the same.
At first glance, when you first log-in, you may see nothing but a bunch of e-mails. "I have a lot of e-mails," you think to yourself whilst viewing your inbox. Certainly this can seem overwhelming! And it makes it difficult to do anything worthwhile.
In this series, my overarching goal is to explain how I use some of the features of Gmail to tame my inbox, manage e-mails efficiently and productively, with the intent of turning the new or casual Gmail-user into a power-user. And, with luck, show others how they, too, can can come to enjoy e-mail.
If you find the tips useful or have questions or comments, feel free to contact me. My e-mail address is listed somewhere in the upper-right corner of this blog (this site does not allow commenting by non-members). And of course, feel free to link others to this tutorial if you feel they may find it useful.
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