Aside from ‘search’, Gmail is arguably Google’s most successful home-grown product out there. Gmail may be smaller than Yahoo! Mail and MSN Live Mail (Hotmail), but it’s certainly growing faster (doubling its share in the last 1 year), and it’s definitely a more polished product. Now, the Google Labs website has long been an experimental haven for Google where the general public could mess around and play with Google’s latest web services. The much newer Gmail labs hopes to tap into that same vein of experimentation and so far – it has accomplished that goal. There are currently 24 features you can play with, but here are 7 of my favorite experimental features you can try in Gmail.
1. Get to where you want with ‘Quick Links’
Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more.
2. There’s more than one way to ‘star’ your messages with ‘Superstars’
Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature:
(1) Go to the "General" Settings page to choose which superstars you wish to use.
(2) Use either the keyboard shortcut (‘s’) or click to rotate through your selected superstars.
(3) Use the search operator "has:" to find all messages with your superstar (e.g. "has:red-bang", "has:blue-star"). Learn the name of a superstar by hovering over its image in the "General" Settings page.
If you enable both the ‘Quick Lists’ and ‘Superstars’ features, you have the ability to setup an awesome to-do list with this tutorial.
3. ‘Mail Goggles’ helps stop you from sending email which you will regret
Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems to prove that you’re sober and alert, and you’re good to go. Otherwise, get a good night’s sleep and try again in the morning. Not as fail-safe as my Outlook tip on how to embargo your emails for 2 minutes, but it’s still a step in the right direction from Gmail.
4. ‘Custom keyboard shortcuts’ and you won’t need to use a mouse
Don’t like GMail’s default keyboard shortcuts? This feature lets you customize keyboard shortcut mappings.
5. ‘Quote selected text’ easily
Quote the text you have selected when you reply to a message. This works best if you use keyboard shortcuts.
6. ‘Forgot attachment’? Never again
Prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments. Prompts you if you mention attaching a file, but forgot to do so.
7. ‘Vacation Time’ helps you manage your out-of-office message
Lets you specify starting and ending dates for the vacation autoresponder so you never have to worry about forgetting to turn it on – or off.
How to enter and enable the lab: Look in your Gmail settings, and there should be a ‘labs’ tab. Click on that tab to visit the Gmail labs, and enable the features you want.
Which email service do you use and why? Let us know in the comments!
I use the documents part of Gmail. It has the same things as Office and I don’t have to download anything.
Thanks for this info! I’m having a bit of an off day, so it took me a while to figure out that Gmail Labs couldn’t be accessed through Google Labs, but that Gmail Labs are accessed through its very own “Labs” tab in your Gmail settings. So I’m merely commenting on the location for anyone else who’s a bit confused by how to find these.
pretty cool stuff. thanks for sharing.
I just started using gmail, but switched to outlook when I found Outlook Track-It. Does anyone have any opinions on gmail for me? Outlook Track-It is good because it reminds me to follow up to emails, and there’s not much as far as add-ins for gmail alone.
@CJW: Try enabling Super-star feature in gmail labs. It gives you a variety of tracking flags. Not as good as an Outlook followup flag, but its better than the usual default gmail star :)