Gmail: Redefining Email

Coming 1st April marks the 5th anniversary of Gmail. Here is a blog post dedicated to the best web-based email service on the internet. Launched in 2004 as an invite-only service, gmail has come a long way. Today, anyone can have a gmail account and use its over 7GB and increasing free storage space. With the great flexibility offered by gmail, it is becoming the choice of the next-generation. If I begin to describe all the advantages of gmail over its competitors, from its 20MB attachment size to 99.9% accurate spam filter, it would probably be an endless post. In order to keep it concise, I will describe in brief some of the less popular yet extremely useful gmail features that make it stand out among its contemporaries.

Filters and labels are the backbone of how Gmail works (and by far its biggest strength), yet every Gmail user does not use them or does not know how to use them. One of the online articles about gmail describes “Not using the filters and labels in gmail is like going to visit a hooker and only asking for a hug.” So if you want more with your gmail account here is some useful information.

Labels: Gmail allows the feature of labels as a substitute to folders as used by other webmail services. We have become so used to having folders in our computers to organize our files and documents that at first, the concept of labels might not appear as good. But, once you begin to use it, the flexibility it provides is nowhere close to what folders offer. While one email can only be placed in one folder, it can have more than one label. So, an important email from a friend can be found when you look for it under the label “Friend” and under the label “Important”. Also folders require emails from your inbox, sent mails or archives to be moved under it, while labels give you the choice whether to move it or not. So the email can be in your inbox, sent mail or archives and yet be found under that label.
To learn more: Click Here

Filters: Gmail filters allow you to manage incoming mails. Using filters, you can automatically label, archive, delete, star, or forward your mail, even keep it out of Spam -- all based on a combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more. If you receive junk mails from some website or some contact and you want to auto-delete them you can do it be just creating a filter. Next email from that contact will follow that action. I have a filter created that labels all my incoming notifications from facebook. This keeps my inbox clean and organized.
To learn more: Click Here

Video and audio chat: Although a well know feature, it definitely separates gmail from most of the popular email services. Now you can have an audio and video conversation with anyone who is online. So if you are a gmail user you do not have to log on to some alternative chat messenger to find a friend online and chat with him. You can do it right away from your gmail window.


Multiple accounts: Although, I am the kind of person who rarely uses my alternative email accounts, but for those who do have multiple email accounts in yahoo, hotmail etc can use their gmail account to check mails on those accounts. The official gmail blog states “Mail Fetcher lets you retrieve messages from up to five different email accounts. Besides taking advantage of Gmail’s spam filtering, you can also use Gmail to send messages using your other email addresses. This is convenient for users juggling multiple accounts -- log in once from anywhere and access all of your messages from different email accounts (without missing a single Gmail chat)."
To learn more: Click Here

Offline Gmail: Only a few days ago, my internet connection was down and I had to get an urgent print out of a document mailed to me by a friend. I didn’t know what to do. There was no way I could access my gmail. Finally I went to a cyber cafe and got the pages printed. The offline gmail feature allows your gmail account to be opened even if you are not connected to the internet. Not only it solves the problem above but it allows much more flexibility. Now you can retrieve, compose and send emails even if you are on a flight or in the outskirts with no internet connection. This is currently an experimental feature but considering its utility in this modern scenario, may soon be permanently implemented.
To learn more: Click Here


Search: There is a saying “There are some things man is not meant to know, for everything else there is Google.” Gmail integrates in it search the capability of the most powerful search engine—Google. You may not have realized it, but whenever you search a mail using search in gmail it performs the most thorough search, checking for the keyword right from the subject till the last letter of every email in your account. Not only emails, it looks for chats, voicemails and if you desire in spam and trash as well.
To learn more: Click Here

By conversation: This is a less credited but extremely useful feature. The gmail help describes it: “Gmail groups all replies with their original message, creating a single conversation or thread. In other email systems, responses appear as separate messages in your inbox, forcing you to wade through all your mail to follow the conversation. In Gmail, replies to replies (and replies to those replies) are displayed in one place, in order, making it easier to understand the context of a message -- or to follow the conversation. When you open one message in a conversation, all of your related messages will be stacked neatly on top of each other, like a deck of cards. We call this Conversation View. In Conversation View, each new message is stacked on top of the ones that arrived before it, so that the newest message is always the one you see first.”

Gmail labs: It allows the gmail user to try out new feature that improve the gmail experience. The official gmail blog states: “Gmail Labs is a way for us to take lots of the ideas we wouldn't normally pick and let you all (who use Gmail) decide whether they're good or not. It has a list of experimental new features, and you can enable or disable each one. Some of the popular ones will become core parts of the product, and we'll eventually retire the ones that don't get much use.” Now you can enable features like undo send, keyboard shortcuts, tasks, forgotten attachment detector etc.

Ads: Email services are free and so they earn revenues by third-party advertisements. Gmail too is free and includes ads. However, unlike any other webmail services gmail ads are clean. All ads are in the right slide. No pop up, no ads on the top, no big flash movies as Ads. Only text based ads, and sometimes they are helpful too.


Along with these, gmail also offers a strong integration between itself and other Google services like Orkut, Calendar, Google docs, Picasa and many more. The creative gmail themes visually improve your gmail experience. This fast and ever-improving service is no-doubt redefining email. Visit the official gmail blog for latest information and updates.