I have recently discovered Gmail Tasks and think that it is fabulous application! This video below goes for a minute and is a perfect introduction to the usefulness of this application. After the video I will then take you through a step by step tutorial on how to add your emails to your task list and your calendar at the same time.
1. Gmail Tasks Location
Tasks works in with your email beautifully. If action a task in an email needs to be added to you task list, you can easily add that email to your task list. Open the email, then click on Tasks. The Tasks tab can be found on the left hand side underneath your labels, as highlighted by the red arrow below.
2. Add Email To Task List
To add the email to your task list, click on more actions as highlighted by the arrow. Choose “Add to Tasks”.
3. Task List
The email will now be added to your task list and the task list will automatically appear on screen in the bottom right hand corner. Click on the arrow at the end of the email title to open up the task.
4. Task List Details
This box allows you to add notes and dates to your task that you have added from email. When you have added the details that you want, scroll down to the end of the box and click on “Back to list”.
5. Tasks Added To Your Calendar
If you have added a date like I have in this example, then the task will not only appear in your task list, but also your Calendar. Click on Calendar as highlighted by the arrow. Read the rest of this entry »
I recently wanted to send an email to a friend with a picture actually in the email and not sent as an attachment in Gmail. I tried all sorts of copy and past techniques to try and do this, but was not successful. With a little bit of research I found that to insert a picture into email when using Gmail, you need to enable a the “Inserting Images” feature.
I will take you through the steps required to enable the function that allows you to insert a picture into your emails:
1. Settings
Go to your settings menu by clicking on the settings tab as highlighted by the red arrow.
2. Settings Menu
You should then come through to a screen which looks like this. Click on the Labs tab as highlighted by the red arrow.
3. Labs Menu
The Labs Menu will look like this. It contains many options and you will need to scroll down towards the end to find the option for inserting images.
4. Insert Images Option
As you can see by the above picture, the insert images option is disabled. Click on enable to activate this functionality in your Gmail account.
5. Save Changes
It is important that you then scroll to the end of the Labs Menu and click on save changes as highlighted by the red arrow. If you don’t do this, your settings will not change.
6. Insert Images Icon
If you click on compose and start to write and email, you should now see a new icon as highlighted by the red arrow. Click on this to insert an image directly into your email.
7. Insert Images Into Email
Once you have clicked on the insert image icon, the above box should appear on your screen. You then click on the option to upload an image from your computer or if you know the images URL you simply enter that.
You can now add images directly to all future emails that you send from your set up Gmail account.
I have been away a lot the last couple of weeks. Firstly I went to Singapore for the Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards. My other blog Planning With Kids was judged as being in the top 5 parenting blogs for the Asia Pacific Region! We were only back for two days, when we then headed to Mildura to see my sister’s new baby girl. As a consequence of this busyness my Google Reader is at exploding point!!!
Previously when this has happened, I have had to declare “Reader Bankruptcy” where I click on “Mark As Read” for all items. I find this incredibly disappointing as I know that I have lost out on reading some fantastic blog posts. There is however a new function on Google Reader that prevents you from having to clear all items in your reader, you can choose to mark as read either all items, items older than a day, items older than a week or items older than two weeks.
For me this a nice middle ground, I can delete everything over two weeks old, then start making my way through the most recent posts. The below screen shots, show how easy it is to do:
In this screen shot the red arrow highlights that I have 1000+ items in my reader. The blue arrow highlights that in this blog feed alone I have 60 new items.
By clicking on the “Mark As Read” drop down menu, I then have a choice to mark items as read by the following time lines:
All items
Items older than a day
Items older than a week
Items older than two weeks.
I have chosen the “Items older than two weeks” option in this example.
Google Reader then asks me if I am sure that I want to do this. It only asks this question when you are marking as read numerous items. I then click on “Mark as Read” to confirm that I want to do this.
The red arrow now highlights that I have only 16 items unread for this blog feed - much more manageable than 60. Of course you can do this for all items at once , by simply clicking on “All Items” on the left hand side of your reader and then following these same steps. Happy Reading!
Recently I have found my inbox growing to quickly each day. Many of the emails that I receive are updates of some form and not emails that I need to see straight away. To make my inbox less cluttered I have set up a number of new filters, so that these types of emails skip the inbox and are archived straight to their label.
I will show you the easiest way to do this!
Step 1 - Select Emails To Filter
From the main screen of your gmail account, open the email that you would like to filter.
Step 2 - Choose Filter Message Option
As highlighted by the red arrow, choose the Filter Messages Like This option from the drop down menu.
Step 3 - Creating Filter
The base details of your email chosen will be filled in for you. If you wish to make the filter any more specific, fill in the details and then click Next Step.
Step 4 - Choose Filter Options
To have emails archived straight to their labels you need to tick the three boxes highlighted by the arrows:
Skip Inbox
Apply and choose label
Apply to conversations below (other emails like this that are currently in your inbox)
Once these have been checked, then click on Create Filter.
Step 5 - Filter Created
You should then see a message like the one highlighted by the arrow above, to advise that your filter has been successfully created. All emails that fit this description will then go directly to their label and will not clog up your inbox!
It does appear to be an issue that cannot be changed within Gmail. In summary it appears to be an issue with the way Microsoft Outlook displays the “from” field.
And at the time of writing that was the correct answer. Things have changed however. Yesterday Google announced that they could solve this problem for some users.
The issue stems with Google ensuring that they comply with mail delivery protocols and showing exactly where the email has come from. That is, that the email was sent from your Gmail account not directly from the server of your actual email address.
“Instead of using Gmail’s servers to send the message, we’ll use the servers where your other email address lives. Since Gmail isn’t the originating domain, we don’t have to include “Sender” info in the header. No more “on behalf of.” From Gmail Blog
That’s great you say, but what do I do to my gmail account to fix it. Follow the steps below, but do note that this may not work in 100% of cases:
“for example, if you use a forwarding alias rather than an actual mailbox, or if your other email provider doesn’t support authenticated SMTP, or restricts access to specific IP ranges.” Source: Gmail Blog
Unfortunately my email provider does restrict access to specific IP ranges, so it hasn’t solved this issue for me, but thought I would share it with you, in case in could help you!
Step 1 - Settings Menu
Click on the settings menu as highlighted by the red arrow.
Step 2 - Accounts Menu
Click on the accounts menu as highlighted by the red arrow.
Step 3 - Edit Info
You should now have a list of all the accounts that Gmail fetches emails from. Click edit info on the account that you would like to remove the “on behalf of” from, as highlighted by the red arrow. It will then take you to the screen below. Simply click on next step.
Step 4 - Send mail through your SMTP server
Click the radio button to send through your email providers SMTP servers and save changes.
Now when you send email from this account, it will not be labeled as being sent on behalf of!
By now you would have noticed the changes the label set up in Gmail. If you were like me then one day when you entered Gmail a couple of weeks ago, you would have noticed that the majority of your labels had disappeared. It once looked like this:
And now it looks like:
So where have the rest of your labels gone? Near the red arrow is an option saying xx more. By clicking on this you will be able to access the rest of your labels. But what if you want to have more labels easily accessible in the left side bar? Simple, follow these instructions and you can change what labels appear in your Gmail account.
1. Settings Menu
From the main page of your set up gmail account, click on the settings tab, as highlighted by the red arrow.
2. Label’s Menu
From the Settings Option, click on the Label’s Menu as highlighted by the red arrow.
3. Organising Labels
As illustrated above, you will now see all your labels listed in this tab. Next to each label is the word show andhide.
4. Hidden Labels
As highlighted by the red arrow, you can see that the label for football has “hide” in bold. This means that it is hidden. If you wish to have this label appear directly in your left hand side bar, click on “show” and it will appear.
5. Show Labels
The alternative way to organise your labels is to use the drag and drop functionality that Gmail now offers. However, when wanting to organise multiple labels, using the Label’s menu is a much quicker and easier way to arrange the labels that you want shown.
Simply go through you list of labels and click “show”on the ones you want to be seen and then hide any you don’t need to see, bu clicking on “hide”.
When you set up email address with Gmail, you effectively have your email in the “cloud”. Being able to access your email anywhere, anytime is fantastic, but what if the cloud disappeared???
I am not at all thinking that this will happen with Gmail, but I do keep lots of precious information in Gmail. I would hate to lose this information, so to take the right precautions, I really need to be backing up my Gmail.
If like me, you set up a email address with gmail after already having another established email address, you will already have a mail client that you use. For example Apple Mail 3.0, Outlook, Thunderbird 2.0 or Windows Mail.
To start the process of backing up Gmail, you will need to configure another email client (as listed above) to receive your Gmail account. Then just follow these steps:
1. Adjusting Settings
Once in your Gmail account go to settings at the top right hand corner, as illustrated by the red arrow.
2. Forwarding and POP/IMAP
Click on to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab as highlighted by the red arrow.
3. Enable POP
Click on the option to enable POP for all mail. This will even include even mail that’s already been downloaded online in your Gmail account.
4. Save Changes
Make sure that you scroll to the bottom of the page and click on save changes.
5. Go To Email Client
All you need to do then is open the mail client that you have configured for Gmail, and check for new messages. It may take some time for your messages from Gmail to be downloaded if you have not done this in a while. But be patient and you will soon have all your emails down from the cloud and a back up copy if you wish!
In a previous post I showed how to enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail. In this post, I will take you through how a keyboard shortcut works and list the ones which I find most useful.
The below example uses my favourite shortcut “Move to”.
Step 1. Checking Message Box
You need to check the box of which email message you wish to use the “Move To” shortcut on. There are two ways to do this:
Use the mouse and click the box as highlighted by the red arrow; or
If the message is highlighted by the black small arrow in Gmail (which I have highlighted with a large blue arrow), you can simply use the Gmail Keyboard Shortcut ‘x’.
Step 2. Enacting the Gmail Keyboard Shortcut
The Gmail Keyboard Shortcut for “Move to” is ‘V’. Once the relevant message has been checked, simply hit the ‘V’ key on your keyboard.
Step 3. Gmail Message Moved
The red arrow highlights the confirmation, which tells you that the message has been moved to the appropriate Label.
Essential Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts:
‘C‘ - Allows you to compose a new message.
‘X‘ - Checks the message that is highlighted in Gmail.
‘V‘ - Moves your message to the chosen Label.
‘/‘ - Moves the cursor to the search box on Gmail.
On April 1, 2004, the first release of Gmail was rolled out. The instant attraction for many users way the free storage that it offered: 1000 MB of storage, compared to only 4MB which other free email services were offering.
But Gmail’s popularity has been on the rise along with its storage allocation which is now over 7000MB. But its storage is only one of the benefits that is attracting users to Gmail. For the key benefits of Gmail check out my earlier post on the 4 Benefits of Gmail.
In addition to these benefits, SmartCompany notes that:
The popularity is being attributed to Gmail’s fondness for free features, including several gigabytes of free storage, chat and video messaging services, and access to applications such as Google Docs in their email services.
Google’s free email service Gmail is growing in popularity and may soon overtake Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail by the end of the year. Between December 2007 and December 2008, Gmail’s unique monthly visitors in the United States grew 43% from 20.8 million to 29.6 million, according to ComScore. Hotmail lost 5% of unique monthly visitors during the same period, falling from 45.7 million to 43.5 million.
From personal experience, I have been incredibly happy with my switch to Gmail. The key advnatages for me are the online access, massive storage allocation and having many applications linked together, for example my Google Reader, Google Docs, Feedburner Account etc.
Have you tried setting up an email address with Gmail yet?
Gmail allows you to work through your emails more efficiently, by the use of keyboard shortcuts. By using the keyboard shortcuts you do not have to take your hands off the keyboard to use the mouse.
To use keyboard shortcuts in Gmail you need to make sure that you have them enabled. To check the status of your keyboard shortcuts, you can follow these simple steps.
Step 1
From the inbox page of your Gmail account, click on Settings as highlighted by the red arrow.
Step 2
On the settings page, you will find radio button options for keyboard shortcuts, as highlighted by the red arrow. Click on keyboard shortcuts on if it is not already selected.
Step 3
Scroll to the bottom of the Settings page and click on the save button, as highlighted by the red arrow.
Keyboard shortcuts will now be available for use in your Gmail account.
