Google's rolling out some improvements to Gmail labels today, including drag-and-drop labeling, smart hiding of labels you use less often, and a location promotion to right below your inbox. Gmail product manager Todd Jackson told me that about 29% of users actually try out labels in Gmail at all, and these tweaks aim to increase that number.
In the fall of 2007 I was thrilled when Google enabled IMAP for Gmail, but I also thought they were crazy. Who would use the web interface (and see ads) if they could get synced mail in a rich desktop client? Turns out that if you make your webapp better than anything on the desktop, people will use it. Less than two years later, I'm using Gmail's web client exclusively, mostly thanks to Gmail Labs. For the July issue of Macworld, I ran down my favorite Gmail power tools, in and out of the web interface. Google moves so fast with this stuff that between the time I turned in this copy and it got published, two more new Labs features were released that have made their way into my heart: Sender Timezone and Inbox Preview. Love it when good software is a moving target.
A neat new Gmail Labs feature can translate email in another language to your native tongue. That's cool, but when it comes to foreign languages, what Gmail really needs is the ability to search and filter by the language a message is written in.
Let's face it, if you only speak one language, most of the mail in your non-native tongue is likely spam. Imagine being able to create a filter that deletes, archives, or labels all messages that are -lang:English (not in English), or automatically marks any message that's lang:Russian as spam. Of course, this gets complicated if a message contains a few languages, but it would be a start to avoiding having to manually process messages that are obviously not meant for you.
Best Ways to Get Gmail on Your Phone
April 8th, 2009, 1 comment
Yesterday Google rolled out some impressive changes to the Gmail mobile webapp that makes checking your email in your phone's web browser an actually-attractive option. No small feat. So this morning over at Lifehacker I broke down what Gmail features you get in a mail client versus the webapp on your iPhone or Android handset.
One of the lesser-known aspects of Gmail Labs' useful Canned Responses feature is that it's available as a filter action. This means you can auto-reply to messages that match criteria you set up with a canned response. For example, you can say that any message from Aunt Bertha with "Fwd" in the subject line should automatically get the response: "I love you Aunt Bertha, but please stop forwarding me chain letters."
As for me, I'm using this to deal with certain particularly persistent public relations people who send press releases to my personal email address. I used to just automatically filter those messages to a label I never look at; now, I can automatically reply with the following using canned responses:
Hi--Looks like you've sent me a press release. Please remove my email address from your mailing list.
Then shuttle the message off to a label I never look at. Check out the setup in the screenshot above. In the second screen of the filter creation process, check off "Send canned response" and choose the one you've set up from the list.
For more on enabling Gmail Labs and its best features, see my picks for best Labs features (including Canned Responses).
Have Gmail and Your Own Domain Name with Google Apps
March 13th, 2009, 7 comments
When you want Gmail without the @gmail.com address, you want a Google Apps account. Over at Harvard Businesses' Conversation Starters blog today, I ran down the advantages (and disadvantages) of putting a free Google Apps account behind yourname.com. Check it out: How to Make Your Small Business Look Big.
Good strong filters can go a long way in processing your email based on rules you set up automatically. (Think: "Delete any Fwd from Aunt Bertha that mentions Rush Limbaugh automatically.") Gmail Labs just added a new filter import/export feature, which lets you back up, save, import, export, and swap useful email filters, so I did just that over at Lifehacker this morning.
Hit up my feature story that offers 10 useful filters in a downloadable, importable XML file for your Gmail filtering pleasure.
Better Gmail 2 Mailing List Now Available
March 9th, 2009, 4 comments
Last week when Google made changes to Gmail that broke the Better Gmail 2 extension which I maintain, users were freaking out about their spam count showing and hierarchical labels not working and emailing me personally to demand to know when it would be fixed. I happened to be across the country attending a family funeral at the time, so it was nearly impossible to communicate to everyone individually that I'd get to it as soon as I could. To avoid having that lovely experience again, I've created a mailing list for Better Gmail 2, the central place for users and developers to powwow and troubleshoot issues collectively. If you're using the extension and have burning questions or tech support issues, that's the place to go from here on in.
A few years ago I would've sworn I'd never give up a rich desktop email program like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird to check my email in a web browser. But here I am in 2009, a full-time web-based Gmail user. Back when I was a zealous Thunderbird evangelist, I said it was T-bird's extensibility and the endless things it could do with add-ons that made it better than any fixed-feature webapp. But Google launched its own set of "add-ons" in the form of Gmail Labs features, and some of them have become such an important part of my email workflow I'll never look back. Where Labs falls short, Greasemonkey user scripts via the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension fill in the gaps.
The list of available Gmail Labs features seems to lengthen by the week, but there are quite a few "meh" items that drown out the really good ones. Here are the five I've got enabled, plus the Better Gmail 2 options I've got checked off.
Google rolled out some changes to the HTML that runs Gmail in the last few days that rendered several of Better Gmail 2's features completely busted. (Yes, that's the technical term).
So I just posted a quick fix-it version 0.7.3.1, which includes changes from the very speedy and helpful Arend von Reinersdorff. (Arend is responsible for Better Gmail 2's most popular features, Folders4Gmail and Hide Spam Count, and I know--because users flip out the moment they stop working. Thanks, Arend.)
Sadly I had to remove several scripts which have not yet been updated to work with Gmail's new markup. Update, Thursday, March 5th: All scripts have been fixed in version 0.7.3.2, which is available now! Thanks for your help.
In the meantime, download the new fix-it version 0.7.3.2 using the Download button on the right, from Better Gmail 2's homepage, or just using Firefox's Add-on boxes' "Find Updates" button. Thanks for your patience with the broken features the last couple of days.
Minutes ago I posted an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension, which adds all sorts of functionality to Gmail. Since Gmail Labs launched, there's been less of a need for Better Gmail 2 features--so this revision clears out a lot of redundant stuff and pares things down to the items Google doesn't offer (yet?).
My favorite addition to this new version 0.7.3 is the awesome Unread Message Count in Favicon script, which adds that helpful little red unread message count to your Gmail tab's favicon (shown above). Note: A similar script which includes chat alerts is Gmail FavIcon Alerts, which I'll try to get permission to include in future Better Gmail 2 versions.
Download the latest version of the extension using the button here, or hit the homepage to see the changelog for the nuts and bolts of what was added, removed, and updated.
I'm Gina Trapani: creator of ThinkUp and Todo.txt apps, co-host of This Week in Google, founding and former editor of Lifehacker. This is my personal blog.
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