There was a time when Hotmail was the favourite free email service that was used by many, but today it is Google Gmail that rules. Gmail is constantly upgrading itself and new features are being added so users can process mail efficiently and quickly.
I get a lots of email every day of which almost 95% is spam or not so important. It becomes a tedious task to go through each title and mark those that are not important and then delete them, so I can concentrate on the important ones. If for some reason I do not check my mail for a day the work load increases the next day.
If you are using Gmail and get a lot of mails every day (hundreds of messages) there are several features that Google Gmail has which you can use to power through the mails quickly and find the most important ones.
Gmail priority Inbox
With propriety inbox you get the list of most important messages on top, separated by the least important. Google Gmail decides which mail should be categorized as priority mails which is based on how frequently you get the message from a particular email, how many times you read it and how many times you have replied to it.
Gmail Propriety inbox is a must have. With it enabled you will see the most important mails on top and when you have time can go through the not so important mails and can also delete them with check all option if needed.
Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts
Yes Gmail does have keyboard shortcuts that can speed up your work. Well most people really do not know this, but now they do. Login into your Gmail account and then just press the “?” (Question mark) (Shift+/) key on the keyboard. You will then see all the shortcut keys with their respective functions.
Gmail Maximum page size
By default the Gmail account shows 25 mails per page in your inbox. You can change it to 50 or 100. I prefer to keep it at 50 so I have fewer pages to browse and also make it easier to scan the 50 messages on one single page.
There are several features that you can find in Gmail Labs such as background send, auto advance, inbox preview, Create a Document, Default ‘Reply to all’ and many more.
Gmail Auto Advance
When you are viewing a message and then you archive or delete it, you are then taken to the inbox again. With this feature enabled the next conversation is automatically shown instead of the inbox. It saves you a lot of clicks and time.
Gmail Background Send
This is a very useful function. Enable it and you need not wait for the message to be sent. You can move on checking other messages or composing other emails. All emails will be sent in the background. But remember you need to be logged in until the whole sending process is completed. This is very useful when you have bigger attachments that take a lot of time.
Gmail inbox preview
As the name says it shows a static and simple preview or the inbox while loading.
Gmail Create a Document
With this feature you can create a new blank document directly from an email conversation.
Gmail Default ‘Reply to all’
By default any email that you reply to is sent only to the main sender and not to all. But with this feature you can change the default option to reply to all.
There are many other features that you will find in Gmail Labs and all you need to do it enable them. In case you want to remove any feature you can disable them.