How To Optimize Your Gmail Account

liah

Figured I'd make a post for people who may not know all the little great things Gmail has to offer.

Optimize your default settings.
A surprising amount of people don't actually take the time to go through each tab in their Gmail settings, or if they do they're not quite sure what to do, so here's some tips!

General
-Got an email in another language you don't quite understand (common enough if you use ebay or other non-English based websites to make online purchases)? You can set it to run your email through Google Translate by default, so all emails will appear to you in your native tongue.

-Change the default setting to "always use https." It's far more secure, so make sure you do it! There's no reason not to.

Labels
-Show/hide certain labels, as well as create new ones. Your best bet is to use in combination with Filters and Multiple Inboxes*, as (in my opinion), they're not incredibly useful otherwise, at least as not as optimized as they could be. Create labels, though, regardless-- they're very handy if you do choose to use with filters/MI.

Accounts and Import
-Particularly handy if you have different email accounts, don't want to have to email everyone to let you know you've changed your address, but are sick of the hassle of logging into various different accounts. You can also import your old mail or contacts you may have on other accounts from any web-based or POP3 (Outlook, etc) mail right into Gmail so you don't lose a thing. You can even send email from your other addresses right from within your Gmail account! Set this up with Multiple Inboxes* and you can have everything in one stop, but it's all still perfectly organized and easy to keep track of.

-Make sure if you've set up multiple emails through your account that "Reply from same address that the message was sent to" is checked! Otherwise, things can get confusing!

Filters
-Fantastic for filtering for sign up spam, or important emails, or website news letters, etc. Keeps everything together, and has a lot of options!
Click on "Create a New Filter." Enter the email address of what you want to filter, or the words you want to filter, or any other of the options available.
Click "next," and select the options you want. As you can see, there's a wide variety of ways to use your filters, such as deleting and skip inbox for all the stuff you don't want to read! So take advantage and keep your inbox clutter-free.

Forwarding and POP/IMAP
-Want to send what's in your Gmail to another account? Simply check "forward a copy of incoming mail", enter the address you want your mail to be forwarded to from now on, and pick the setting that suits you best. This is great if you've changed your email address but still want to catch anything people might be sending to the old one, or you're switching your email host (not sure why), or whatever else.

-From here, you can also configure Gmail to send your emails to a program you have installed on your PC, such as Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird. Click on "configuration instructions," and Gmail will walk you through the process-- you don't even have to know what you're doing as long as you follow instructions! Like with forwarding, just select the setting to suit you.

Google Labs
This is a must-use! You also need to check back every so often to see what new stuff has been released.

Now, I'm not going to go into ALL of them, but I will go into the ones I've personally found the most useful.

Multiple Inboxes*
Possibly one of the most useful Labs tools I've found. Put into use with Labels and Filters (and accounts, if you have that set up), you can keep everything separated.
Create a filter to archive the specific types of emails you want, so they don't show up in your default inbox.
When you go to the Multiple Inboxes tab in Settings, it doesn't really give you much information as to what to do, just provides you with blank boxes. This is where your labels come in. In the boxes, enter "label:label name" in which "pane" you want. 0 is the biggest one, so set that to "inbox." Add a label name if you like. Add as many panes as you like, and then check the format which you would like your inboxes to be displayed.


Other neat features are themes, the ability to customize your inbox's colours, use AIM with your Gmail chat, adding Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Quick Links, to your front page, sending SMS from within Gmail (only works in certain countries at the moment, as far as I know), etc. Everything right up to Gmail Goggles, which, when put on a timer, doesn't allow you to enter your inbox without answering a maths question correctly-- great for deterring you from sending some drunken emails to your ex or boss! But they're very straightforward so I won't bother including them here. Play around with Gmail and make your life easier!

If you have any questions just post 'em up here and I'll do my best to help you out. I'll update this post whenever required.