As I have mentioned on a previous post about Gmail (How to make gmail load faster), it is the most popular free web-based mail right now, and mostly because of its many features. I have listed down several features that will help you increase your productivity.
1.) Use Filters and Label Features of Gmail
– Create a filter according to your criteria and label it so it is more organized.
Go to Gear Symbol on the upper right corner, Settings then choose Filter tab, Create new filter, choose your criteria and action to go with it. (I would suggest using the Label feature for a more streamlined inbox).
– Use the “+” symbol for easier tracking of subscriptions
If you are a subscription happy person and loves to sign up for anything and everything, use the “+” hack to better keep track of where you leave your email addresses to. Simply add the “+” symbol to your gmail address, ex. jennthetechiemom+cnn@gmail.com for your CNN alerts, it’ll be easier to keep track which is which.
– “.” symbol doesn’t matter in Gmail
Whether you use jenn.the.techie.mom or jennthetechiemom @gmail.com , it will still land on your inbox. You can use this “glitch” to filter your mail.
2.) Undo Send
I’m sure everyone has one time or another accidentally sent a email to the wrong person. This is a very useful tool for precisely that mistake. You can install the “Undo Send” feature, you can click the “undo” link a few seconds after hitting that send button. Go to the Gear Symbol, Settings, Labs and search for “Undo Send”.
3.) Canned Responses
You can create and save canned responses, saves your time to type (or copy-paste) same responses over and over. Go to the Gear Symbol, Settings, Labs and search for “canned responses”.
4.) Make Gmail your catch all account
Do you have more than one email account? Do you check all your inboxes one at a time? You can actually sync all your accounts in just one Gmail account and don’t need to log in to another account anymore.
Go to the Gear Symbol, Settings, Account and Import, Add a POP3 mail account you own and follow instructions.
5.) Multiple Inboxes
This is especially useful if you are using your Gmail as your catch all inbox, you can configure your Gmail to have multiple inboxes for your different email addresses, pretty nifty huh! Just go to Gear Symbol, Settings, Labs and search for “Multiple Inboxes”.
6.) Avoid Phishing and know if it’s a verified sender
You can enable Gmail’s authentication icon for verified senders feature to avoid phishing emails. You will see a key icon next to the messages from trusted senders like Google,Ebay and Paypal. Go to Gear Symbol, Settings, Labs and search for “Authentication icon for verified senders”.
7.) Turn on desktop notification
With desktop notification turned on, you will see a pop-up when messages arive, so you don’t need to be on the Gmail window all the time to keep track of new email messages coming in. Go to Gear Symbol, Settings, then enable new mail notifications on under the General tab (you can opt to turn on the “important mail notifications on” instead, so you will only be notified if an email marked as important comes in).
8.) Gmail Offline
This is especially useful for people who have intermittent problems with their internet or are so busy that emails in the inbox piles up that you need to organize your email without the internet turned on. There is a Gmail addon called “Gmail offline” that you can install. You can now choose to download your mails, access it without having an internet connection.
What are your favorite Gmail addons, features or lab apps? Share it on the comments section below!
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Hi Jenn! Is there a way to track subscriptions AFTER I have subscribed already?
Hi Cym, hmm. If the subscription plugin used is jetpack, then yes, via Manage subscription of wordpress.com , you can see the link to it below the newsletter that site sends you 🙂
Thank you! This is wonderful.
Wow this is really helpful! Thanks for these thetechiemom!