Gmail Mini Review

I have been using Gmail for almost 3 years now. I believe it to be one of the best web-based email servers that I've ever used. Much more than just that-- I can not only email, but even chat and video chat at any given moment if need be. It also has a feature that allows me to cancel any message within a few seconds after sending if there is an error, that I haven't found on any other server and it has come in quite handy for me. Also, I feel as if the filtering of emails is better on Gmail than on any other site. I don't have to even see pesky spam emails because of custom labels and filtering on my Gmail. All of these are for free, as opposed to other sites that charge for subscriptions. As for five tips, I would suggest the following:

1. To keep any message that may be important in the future or maybe even required for future reference, easily keep the message marked without losing it in your inbox by simply "Starring" the message. This adds it to a labeled link that will have the message that you marked minus the digging through newer emails for it.

2. Go into the Settings tab to change the theme. It provides a creative and unique background for your personal email, which creates a nice change from a bland white background that's typical from other email servers.

3. As I mentioned, I liked the capability of filtering messages. To do this, when opening an email look in the upper right corner of the email and you will see a drop down arrow to the right of “Reply“ option. Click it, and look down to see the option “Filter messages like this“. Voilà!

4. If you haven't starred a message and can't seem to find it within your inbox, or frankly do not feel like searching - make things easier by searching for the email! Use the search bar on the Gmail page by typing in a sender, topic, or date and surely enough the message will pop up.

5. If using Google Chrome, you can easily drag pictures into a message from your desktop or folders on your computer. The same goes for word documents or other files you may want to upload into an email message. First you go to Settings > Labs > Inserting Images Lab to get this feature.

Categories: Fall Semester, IT 104, Review