5 More Gmail Tips And Tricks - Gmail Tutorial Pt. 4

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I’ve pretty much covered the productive uses and features of Gmail in this series, but today, I’m going to present you with 5 more Gmail hacks and tips and tricks that are fun, interesting, and very handy. Enjoy! (Spread the word, too!)

NOTE: The following are things you may already know, and can easily be found with a little exploration, But, you can always learn something new, right?

1: Keyboard Shortcuts

We all know keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+A, are big time savers and productivity boosters. But did you know you can use keyboard shortcuts in Gmail too? There are a whole lot of shortcuts available, such as for bringing up the compose dialog, to reply, and so on.

To activate these shortcuts, Go to Settings -> General, down to the ‘Keyboard shortcuts’ area, and check ‘Keyboard shortcuts on’. After that, look at this list for all the available shortcuts. Done!

2: Vacation Responders

If you’re going on a vacation, and you know there’s going to be no internet access where you are going, or you simply don’t want to be disturbed, this is for you. Gmail has a nifty little feature called a ‘vacation responder’, which like an auto responder, sends a pre-defined reply to everyone who sends mail to you, telling them you’re on vacation and are not available right now.

You can find the vacation responder by going to Settings -> General, and scrolling down to the Vaction responder area:

Check ‘Vacation responder on’, and write your subject and message in their respective dialog boxes. The check box ‘Only send a response to people in my Contacts’ is a handy privacy tool. If you don’t want people besides those in your contacts list to know that you’re on vacation, check this box. People not in your contacts, when they email you, will not receive this vacation responder. Neat, eh?

3: Safe and Secure

Gmail allows you to use an SSL connection, or a secure connection to your Gmail account. This is to prevent hacking of your account, should you use Gmail on a public computer (such as an airport). You should use a secure connection anyways, no question, to safeguard your account.

You can find these settings by clicking on Settings -> General, and scrolling down to the very bottom of the page, to the ‘Browser connection’ area. Check ‘Always use https’.

4: Web Clips

Web Clips are those little pieces of text and other information(text ads, Gmail tips, et al.) just above the messages window. They look like this:

Gmail has a dedicated settings page for these web clips, where you can turn them off, or target them to your interests. Go to Settings -> Web Clips, where you can either turn them off for good or choose topics. You can also see a list of all your clips. If you don’t want to see clips from a particular topic, simply remove them by clicking the ‘Remove’ link.

To add clips, click a topic in the list on the left and add the ones you want.

DID you know you could also add RSS feeds to it too, to make your inbox somewhat of an RSS reader? Great isn’t it? Just type in the RSS feed URL of your desired feed into the ‘Search by topic or URL’ text box and click search. Then simply add the RSS feeds that the search returns.

Note that these feeds will be displayed randomly with the other content, and will not be targeted to the current message or content that you are viewing in Gmail.

5: Labs

Gmail is always rolling out new and exciting features. It has a Labs section, where you can add features, kind of like addons to your Gmail account, to make email management fun and easier. Just head over to Settings -> Labs, and enable features!

Warning: As advised on the Labs settings page too, these features are experimental and not completely ready yet, and so may exhibit odd behaviour. Use with caution!

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