How To Make Your Gmail Even Better

I am a longtime Gmail user- since the first beta version, if I remember correctly. I use Gmail for all sorts of things (as most of us probably use our e-mail): personal, work-related, both private and public mailing lists, groups, etc. Over the years, I've found ways to improve and personalize my Gmail experience which I wanted to share with my readers. The following are a few neat apps, browser extensions and features which I have come across and found useful or noteworthy:

I want to start off with a few of my favorite features which can be found in every Gmail account, are simple to use, and I believe are not taken advantage of enough.


Labels- sort the e-mails in your inbox into different labels which can be color coded. This is very easy to set up and is a tremendous help in organizing your e-mails. If you use this function together with filters, your inbox can sort itself.


Filters- This feature can do almost anything. It can automatically apply labels to incoming or existing e-mails based on sender, subject, recipient, containing words, etc. You can also automatically perform actions (i.e., forward, star, mark as read, delete) on e-mails with specific criteria, both to old and future conversations. The 'create a filter' wizard provided is very easy and self-explanatory. This is a very useful options if (like me) you get e-mails from different mailing lists, or if you want to automatically sort mails to labels.


Web Clips - Notice the annoying Google Ads toolbar at the top of your inbox? If you would also like to see news items, jokes, or content from pretty much any RSS feed or website by topic there, Gmail has a nifty feature called Web Clips listed under the 'Settings' bar.

Gmail Labs - Labs are the opening to a whole world of great features built for Gmail in order to personalize it. To take advantage of the labs, you need to go into 'Settings' and find the tab name 'Labs' (make sure your Gmail preferences are set to English). This is where Google developers publish beta features of all sorts- what they refer to as "crazy experimental stuff".

[If you need it there is an escape: in case a Lab feature crashes your inbox, you can open your account and disable the labs additions by using the link provided at the top of the list. Thankfully, I have never had to do so, but it's good to know that there is an easy way out.]

There is a very long list of available labs, but here's a shorter list taken right from the labs of features that I love and use:

• Authentication icon for verified senders - Displays a key icon next to authenticated messages from certain senders that spammers attempt to fake (PayPal and eBay).

• Create a Document- Allows you to create a Google Document from an email conversation.

• Don't forget Bob - Once you pick some email recipients, Gmail suggests more people you might want to include based on the groups of people you email most often.

• Google Maps previews in mail - Shows Google Map previews of all the addresses found in an email.

• Hide Labels from Subjects - Working on a netbook with a small screen? Labels next to mail in your inbox take up valuable space. Hide them, and you'll be able to see the subjects of your emails themselves.

• Mail Goggles (Anti Drunk Mailing) - Google strives to make the world's information useful. Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems and you're good to go. Otherwise, get a good night's sleep and try again in the morning. After enabling this feature, you can adjust the schedule in the "General" settings page.

• Sender Time Zone - Should I reply to this mail or just call the guy? Ooops… it's 1 am. Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb.

I am really trying to keep the list short but it's hard. Admittedly, most of the labs are useful for a select few Gmail users, depending on your e-mail usage, however I believe that there is definitely something for everyone, regardless of how you use your Gmail, so go into the labs and set yourself up!

The rest are download-able extensions to your browser which work with Gmail, but are only available when using the computer and browser where the extension was installed.


Boomerang - Boomerang gives you the option of sending e-mails at a later time. The "send later" button can schedule a specific email to be sent at a specific time. When Boomerang is installed, it adds a small button at the top of every e-mail with a drop-down list of set times (such as tomorrow morning or two hours from now), or you can manually set an exact time. This is very useful for a range of e-mail usages, such as sending yourself a reminder, a virtual birthday card, or even a work-related message.

Rapportive- This is a great concept, an extension which is supposed to show you information about the sender of a given e-mail. A complete contact information profile is displayed on the right side of the message as soon as you open the email, including the sender's picture, work info, and more. This is a really interesting concept, but I couldn't get the extension to work properly. If anyone has tried this, I would love to hear how you feel about it.

Gmail Facebook Integration - Adds Facebook news feed directly into Gmail, just like Google Buzz was supposed to. There is also nice Twitter integration as well (thanks to David Mulder). On the Gmail left panel toolbar, in addition to Inbox, Sent Mail, etc., there are Facebook and Twitter buttons, which show you your Facebook news feed and Twitter home page. You can update your status or tweet from the Gmail window, but in order to interact (comment, like) with friends who appear on your news feed, you need to actually go to the Facebook homepage.

WiseStamp - Another neat extension which lets you add a signature to your emails. This is a step up from the built-in Gmail signature feature in many ways. First of all, you can have two different signatures (personal and business are the default options). You can add links to all your social profiles (including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, AIM, Amazon, eBay and many more- you can even include your latest tweet, FB status update, recently listed eBay items). You can also include a random quote of different topics, a green footer, or a legal disclaimer, as well as design options such as borders and backgrounds, and (of course) a link to any website under the sun.