6 Features of Gmail You Didn't Know About

GMAIL- one of the craziest and sought after advertising supported webmail, POP3 and IMAP service provided by Google. Available to the public since 7th February, 2007, has undergone innumerable changes in the features which a regular user might notice. A few of them yet go un-noticed as the best features are either hidden away under layers or aren’t turned on by default, making them worth exploring.

Being a regular user of Gmail and a big fan of it, I always thought that there can be possibly nothing about Gmail that I do not know, but, actually, there are loads.

Here are a few of them that you may not know about and be surprised that these are also options provided by one of the best webmail services.

The Gmail Labs is one of the outstanding features provided. The concept was introduced in June 5, 2008 to allow users to test on the new nifty little features Gmail has provided. It has 60 features that can be turned on or off at your own disposal but it is constantly shuttling between a few new and a few old ones. My favourites would be

A sweet cracker buster feature would be the “UNDO SEND” option that Gmail provides. It must be innumerable times that you accidentally click onto the send button or you just happened to miss out a correction in the mail you are forwarding. Not to worry any more, friends. Gmail provides you with an option to undo your accidents within a time span of 30 seconds. This is as all the mails are sent via the same server, so it might just happen that yours isn’t sent immediately and might be queued up for the process. So if you realise your mistake in this short period of time then you can stop a large percentage of your mistakes.

Another amazing feature would be the CANNED RESPONSES that lets you create a template of the most frequently used replies or text. Now you do not need to make the effort to re-type the same old, boring stuff again and again and save your time. You can simply use the template to start a new message. Oh! How it reminds me of stored procedures in Database Management Systems.

The SEARCH AUTOCOMPLETE which automatically suggests the various linked terms, keywords, names and label, when you start typing in the Gmail search box. This saves you the pain of typing the entire word and allows you to select it with a swift movement of the hand.

ATTACHMENT DETECTOR which will notify you if you have forgotten to attach a file after mentioning that you would do so. This feature is such a sweetheart. I love it as it reminds me all the time of my carelessness.

Another incredulous feature which caught my attention would be the MOUSE GESTURES. Now you can use your mouse to shuttle between your old and new mails withy gestures. Sounds fun nay..?? All you need to is to enable the MOUSE GESTURES from your Gmail labs. Then, to start using it, hold the right cluck button of your mouse (or that of your keypad) and move the mouse to the left to go to the previous mail and the right to go to the next mail. Also, to go to the inbox view, all you need to do is press the same right key and gesture the mouse to move upwards. Just a small reminder, this feature is known to work best on windows platform.

Every Gmail account comes with an infinite capacity of individual addresses that you can use. Literally, infinite. All you need to do is to add a “+” symbol after your username and create whatever new address, funky or professional, for what so ever purpose. It also helps you filter your incoming emails that save you from missing out your important mails among a bunch of dullard ones. Not to forget the devilish headaches and the precious time.

So, people, go ahead and explore your gmail account some more and discover the vast superbly exciting features it has to offer and keep me informed. Till then, cia..