This will be one of the many posts in the near future of websites i use on a daily basis. The main focus of these articles will be to go into detail on what features i use on the site that make my life easier and/or how those features saves me time. Lets start with Google Mail.
Anyone can use an E-mail client, but are you getting the most out of yours? Using filters inside of Google Mail can help keep your inbox neat and tidy. Lets say for example you receive e-mails from Amazon on a weekly basis. You enjoy reading these e-mails but would rather them not show in your inbox. Lets setup a filter to handle this situation.
Filters
- Open up the settings by clicking “Settings” in the upper right hand corner.
- Click “Filters”
- Click “Create a new filter”
- Inside the “From” Field put “*@amazon.com” (no quotes) and click “Next Step”
- Checkmark “Skip the Inbox(Archive It)”
- Checkmark “Apply the Label” and choose a label. Call this label “Amazon”
- Checkmark “Also apply filter to x conversations below
- Click Create Filter
Now every time an e-mail comes from Amazon.com it will automatically skip your inbox, and apply the label “Amazon” to it. To access all your Amazon mail, simply click on the “Amazon” label under the “Labels” section. Labels are different than a folder as an e-mail can have multiple labels. The benefit of this is you can get to your e-mails in multiple ways.
Experiment setting up rules for the types of e-mails you receive. By simply setting up filters to label your e-mails automatically, all of your mail will be neatly organized automatically.
Searching
How often can you NOT find an e-mail you are looking for? Well using the “Search” feature quickly brings up e-mails realitive to what you are searching for with the power of Google Search behind it. I am sure you are familiar with how good Google.com searches, now imagine that power with your e-mails!
Never delete e-mails again
Google Mail offers you tons of storage space. Never worry about deleting that e-mail from Grandma to save space. Simply Archive it and forget about it. You never know when that e-mail will come in handy in the future and its extremely easy to find it again if you have it labeled or by searching for it.
Signing up for Unknown Websites
How often do you visit a website, and don’t want to signup because you are afraid you will receive spam from them? If you were to signup for a website using yourusername+signup@gmail.com you can simply setup a filter to filter e-mails that are TO yourusername+signup@gmail.com. Using this you can automatically send spam from websites to this label as opposed to signing up for a whole another e-mail account!
Google Talk
Almost all of my friends are using Google Mail now. I am able to chat directly inside the browser when needed. Having this integrated into the browser has been a huge help in communicating, especially if you are on a computer that you are not able to install a chat client on. This also saves all of your chats in the “Chats” section on the left. You have no idea how many times i have had to reference past chats to obtain information. Of course, you can go “Off the record” if needed to NOT save past chats.
Contacts
A feature i use all the time is creating Groups with my contacts. I created a group called “Family” which when i want to send an e-mail to my whole family i just type “Family” in the “To” address and select the option i provides. Never have to worry about remembering everyones e-mails, or leaving someone out.
Conclusion
Using the concepts above using E-mail has been more rewarding than ever. I never waste time with useless e-mails inside my in box as everything is automated and with Google’s spam filters, i hardly EVER get spam inside my inbox. Don’t fight with your e-mail client, switch to Google Mail today.
Firefox is simply the best browser available mainly because of its large library of extensions available. Users are able to create their own extensions and submit them to be downloaded. There is a handful of useful extensions i use every day that when i use a browser without them, it kills my productivity. Here is a list of extensions i use often.
