It’s been a good week for users of Gmail (Google Mail). I must admit, I have been a fan from the beginning. Before the arrival of Gmail I had other internet mail accounts, but the arrival of Gmail seemed to take the experience into another league. Free webmail, accessible from any computer already existed, but Gmail introduced a really effective anti-spam system and seemingly unlimited online storage of mail. It also made mail centralization easy with the ability to collect and send mail from all your other addresses in one easy place. As someone who has multiple business and personal addresses, I have been a very satisfied user from the start.
Recently things just got better. Google introduced three new features recently which have again put it ahead of its free rivals.
Gmail Goes Offline
First, you can now access your Gmail inbox, read and archive messages, and even compose replies without being connected to the web. Messages are automatically sent once the internet connection is reactivated. Despite the recession the sale of Notebooks and dongles has gone through the roof, so this feature will be particularly attractive to a new generation of mobile webusers with some form of restriction on their broadband usage, as well as being useful to mobile webusers struggling to get a connection.
To activate your offline account, click the Settings in your inbox, then Labs. Select Enable by the Offline Gmail Option, and save your changes. The offline functionality is enabled by Google Gears.
Syncs
For people who use their mobile phones to send email, the holy grail is free push email, where messages that arrive on the mail servers are instantly sent to the mobile phones for free. OK, Gmail doesn’t do this yet, but reports suggest that it is coming. However, Google Sync does something else equally useful for some users.
It can now sync Google Contacts and Google Calendars with the contacts and calendar on your phone instantaneously. Before such syncing was available via for Microsoft Office and at a price. Now Google offers it for free with their products. I regularly use four computers in three venues and a mobile phone. Another colleague in addition to myself has access to my calendar of appointments. Google syncing has made a wonderful difference to me. As soon as a change is made on any one of the computers or on my phone to calendar or contacts, it is immediately synched with all the other machines. Where-ever I am I know that the calendar and contact information is up-to-date, so that double bookings are avoided. It’s fantastic.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt_-qHczCMg]
Multiple Inboxes
OK, to be honest, the jury is still out on this one for me, but other users are raving about it. Gmail has always allowed you to sort mail into different folders using labels. You can manually add the label to a post, or set up a filter to do that for you. Now you can have all the posts in a particular folder on screen as another inbox, alongside the standard in box. I can see that for some people, the ability to not just sort, but to be able to see the results of the sort on screen alongside the inbox would be useful. But at the moment I don’t have a need for it. However, you might.
Go to Settings, Labs, and then enable Multiple Inboxes, and save changes. Then go to Settings, Multiple Inboxes, and create the labels you want to serve as inboxes. Save changes.
I can see how this first one would be really useful for me.
I was going to say let’s have another teaching session once I have hammered this first course of mine and progressing with the second.
I’ll let you know, also you may have more free time then anyway.
Thanks for this.
I have just tried to install. All ok so far but I have to install gears apparently. What is this. Have looked up the info but it is not very helpful. I don’t want google to become my main page. Perhaps, I should install it on my note book and not my lap top. What do you think?
onethoughtfulwoman
If you are worried about the laptop, install it on the notebook, though it is redundant there until you get connected. If Google does end up as your home page, it can easily be changed. It wouldn’t have to be a permanent feature unless you wanted it to be.
I probably need to sort out the way I use email. I have just got used to doing it one way (not a straightforward way) and it is more hassle in the short term to change it. But I will do so.
The synching thing does sound great. I actually have several different address books and yes, I remember to alter things on one and not the others.
Actually the more I think about it, the more I realise that the way I handle email is just not sensible at all! It’s surprising I don’t miss things more often than I do.
I shall give gmail a try when I come back. I shall use getting my iPhone as the impetus for an overhaul.