Gmail has become world’s most popular email service, and with good reason.
It is one of the easiest, most user-friendly email services, and therefore everyone wants to use it. It already has a fast interface, but there are some great tricks that can help you power through its interface even faster – making you much more efficient than before. Here are some simple tricks that you should definitely know to save time.
Search Capabilities
Gmail is a Google product and Google is known for its search capabilities. Therefore, Gmail, by virtue of having a great tech parent, has a very robust search engine as well. You can use several parameters for making your searches. For instance, if you are looking for messages with heavy attachments, you can use the size parameter. If you type ‘size: 10m’ in the search box, it will give you results for all mails that are heavier than 10 MB. You can also pair this with other modifiers. ‘Older than’ modifier is another important search term that you can use to search for specific mails.
Work Offline
If you are working in a place where you do not have internet or Wi-Fi access, you can install the Gmail offline version, which will work on any computer that does not have a working internet connection. With this, you can read mails, compose them, and even respond to them. Searching and archiving messages is also possible on Gmail Offline. When you are online, it will automatically sync with the server and download new mail as well as send the mails in your outbox. However, it requires Google Chrome to function.
Turn off Conversations
For many people, the Gmail’s conversations view is very messy and difficult to manage. If you are one of those people, you can help yourself out. Just click on the settings option on your Gmail inbox, and turn the conversations view off by selecting ‘Conversation view off’. This will make sure that you get your mail in non-conversational threads so that you can choose which mails to keep and which to delete forever from your inbox.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Everyone swears by keyboard shortcuts. They are easy to use and save a lot of time. With Gmail too, that is the case. Learn the simple keyboard shortcuts for your mail. Click R for Reply, Ctrl+Enter to send a mail, Ctrl+K to insert links and a lot more. If you want a full list of all available keyboard shortcuts, just install a Gmail add-on called KeyRocket. On the other hand, you can download the entire Gmail shortcuts by pressing Shift+? while you are still in your inbox.
Set Priorities
Gmail lets you mark important messages so that they can bubble to the top. This way, you can instantly look at them when you need to. If you are emailing from work, or have friends and relatives that send you important email, you can get yourself the Priority Inbox. All the prioritized mail will always appear on top and would not get lost in the shuffle. To enable the feature, click on settings and the inbox tab. There, look at the Inbox Type selector and choose Priority Inbox. This is a slightly tricky feature, but once you are able to wrap your head around it, it can make your life much easier.
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