A Webmail Experiment

How can Google Mail (Gmail) make email better? Let us count the ways!

First, has your free email provider ever had the nerve to shut down your inbox because you’ve run out of your allotted space? Gmail gives you over 6 gigabytes of storage space, and that amount grows every second. You’ll never have to delete anything (unless you want to), and sending/receiving big files like picture files is a breeze.

Second, your inbox is searchable with Google’s powerful search feature, so you never have to organize your mail into folders ever again. Looking for that email about the Rolling Stones? Just search your inbox. There it is!

The problem is that some people actually enjoy sorting and organizing their mail. Google won’t let you. Imagine if your mother refused to let you clean your room because she knew you could find everything with it messy—so why clean it? Um, so it’s clean?

Want Gmail? Sure you do. How do you sign up? Well, you can’t. Initially you had to be invited by someone who already had it (which is still one way to get a Gmail account). Alternatively, you can now sign up for an account but you have to have a mobile phone to verify you account. Why all these hoops to jump through? No one knows. Maybe so you value it more. I suppose that maybe it helps keep spammers and bots away. I know I don't mind a few extra hoops if it helps keep the riffraff out!

Gmail now offers Google Talk, an instant-messenger client that lets you chat with other Gmail users. Voice features have also been added to Google Talk, so you can use it like the Voice over IP service Skype, too.

Gmail features of note:

Flexible email addresses

One secret Gmail trick is your email address is pretty flexible. Most people register their address as <first>.<last>@gmail.com, but Gmail will also recognize that name without the dot between <first> and <last>. Also, Gmail addresses are not case-sensitive. But here’s the real good bit: you can add a + sign to your email address, as in <first>.<last>+<filter>@gmail.com, and Gmail will route that message into a filter that you set up based on the keyword. So if you are having a party and want your guests to RSVP, you could have them reply to George.Bush+yes@gmail.com or George.Bush+no@gmail.com and Gmail will sort them for you once you set the filters to sort by address. Simple!

A VERY important feature is that you can also use a pre-existing email address to send and receive from your Gmail account. For example, if you already have your own domain, and thus want to keep your current address, yourname@yourdomain.com, you can just set that up to forward to your Gmail account, and you can set Gmail to show that address whe sending. That way all mail sent from your Gmail account still shows as coming from yourname@yourdomain.com. You get all the cool features of Gmail, and still get to keep your own custom domain address!

Taking notes

Sometimes you want to remind yourself of something, or send yourself a picture or a URL. It’s easy enough to email it to yourself, but with a little tweaking, you can mail notes to yourself and Gmail will file them for you. First, create a contact with a name of "Notes" and an email address of username+Notes@gmail.com. Then, create a new label called "Notes." Create a filter to add the "Notes" label to any email addressed to "username+Notes@gmail.com". Also, check the "Skip the Inbox (Archive it)" checkbox. When you email a note to Gmail from another email account, the note will bypass your inbox and go straight to your Notes label, nice and neat—and it’s all completely searchable, too.

In-network emailing

If you’re emailing someone else with a Gmail account, you don’t have to use @gmail.com when you address the email. Just type the person’s Gmail username and that’s it!

Gmail archive

Some mail clients let you create folders so you can organize your email away from your inbox. You’ve got a file for school, a file for work, a file for family, etc. But with Gmail and its Google-powered search feature, you don’t need to organize anything. Just search for “Mom” and all emails regarding Mom, whether they were to Mom or about Mom will pop up. But you don’t want every email sitting in your Inbox, either. Just click the Archive button (either at the top of your Inbox or inside the message) and the message will leave your Inbox. The email is still searchable and retrievable, but you don’t have to look at it every time you log in.

Conversations

One of the strongest features of Gmail is its ability to string emails together on a related subject, mostly due to back-and-forth replies with the same subject line. It’s a handy feature, but its use could result in some unintended consequences. One caution: When you are inside one of these conversation threads and initiate a Gmail action like “Move to Trash,” “Mark as Read,” “Delete Forever,” or “Report as Spam,” the action will affect all messages contained in that conversation. To affect only the most recent message, click More Options—there you can manage the single message instead of the whole conversation.

Sent mail

It’s worth noting that any mail you send from Gmail gets saved. So don’t send the ransom note with Gmail. You can view your sent mail in the All Mail and Sent Mail views. Google saves your mail because Google believes that the world will be better off if you can save more of your mail. If we are forced to delete mail to make room for new mail, we lose a part of ourselves, a part of history, a part of the evidence in your impending court case …

Advanced search

Just like the rest of Google, Gmail has a muscular search feature. How powerful is the search? Stronger than you think. Just like in Google’s search there are a number of advanced search terms that you can use to focus Gmail’s search results. Here’s a partial list:

From: from:Dad
To: to:Stacey
Subject: subject:homework
OR subject:dinner OR subject:lunch
has:attachment from:joe has:attachment
in:trash in:trash from:mary subject:groceries
after: before: after:2005/11/25 before:2005/12/14

.

See also:

• Froogle
• Fun With Google
• Google Book Search
• Google Calendar
• Google Groups

• Google Maps
• Google News
• Google Search Tips
• Google Zeitgeist
• Image Search
• Your Website and Google