Tips and Tricks to Customize Your Gmail Account

I have never been happier with an email service than I am with my Gmail account. The whole layout is clean, simple and easily navigated. I can always find what I need and because of the huge amount of storage space never have to delete anything I might need again in the future. But, my absolute favorite thing about Gmail is how easy it is to customize to be even more helpful and organized.

Colored labels in Gmail make finding the messages you are looking for very easy. They also help organize and add a little color to your inbox. I find myself using Gmail colored labels very often.

You can also organize your email by setting up filters. With Gmail, you can add a + sign to the end of your address and then have a folder set up for all mail with the corresponding name to go to. For example, youraddress+bill@gmail.com would send all email sent to that address to a special bills folder.

Using key commands in Gmail can make going through mail a lot faster. If you come across a message you don’t need or are done with, simply press # (shift + 3). This will immediately delete the message. It also works if you have multiple messages selected. There are lots of other key commands that I use when reading and writing email in Gmail. Turn them on and then look at the list and see what will make your life easier.

If you have multiple email addressed, checking your email can be very time consuming and annoying, especially if you are looking for a message and you aren’t sure which account it was sent to. With Gmail’s Mail Fetcher you can have email from up to five accounts all come to one inbox. All you have to do is set up the POP settings within Gmail.

Another Gmail tool that I have grown to love is the Google Calendar Sync tool. You can sync your Google calendar with the calendar in Microsoft Outlook, which is helpful for me because I use the web browser on my home computer but use Outlook at work. I can get access to my Outlook calendar from home or from any computer I use. I can also get my information when I am offline. The Google Calendar Sync tool has made my life so much easier.

I have been a fan of the Gmail chat since Gmail first introduced it. It was so convenient when I was about to send someone a quick email and saw that they were also logged into Gmail and I could just instantly chat with them instead. Plus I love that the smiley faces turn themselves right side up. The only downfall, however, was that sometimes when I wanted to quickly check my email, someone else would see me logged in and start a chat, when I really wasn’t in the mood for one. Now, Gmail chat has an invisible mode, so when I don’t want to be disturbed writing an important email, I can make myself appear offline. It also works if you are using the AIM network through Gmail chat. Perfect!