Google Data » R S

New in Labs: Reply add-ons

R S — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:11:00 +0000

Posted by Darick Tong, Gmail engineer

We Gmail developers are arguably among the most demanding of Gmail's users. So in addition to the feedback we get from all of you, a lot of the ideas for new features come from our own frustrations and experiences. We send and receive a lot of mail, and we've already started using these Labs features to make replying that much better.

Quote selected text, by Ryan A
Gmail makes it easy to manage long conversations or threads by hiding the text you've seen before. Unfortunately, this means that the people you're communicating with that aren't using Gmail sometimes get annoyed with you for leaving 25 pages of irrelevant conversation in the email. Also, sometimes you just want to reply to one small part of a conversation. Deleting lots of irrelevant text is rather annoying, so this Labs feature should make your life easier. Just highlight the text you want to include in your reply, hit the keyboard shortcut "r" to reply, and the compose template will be just what you selected! Note: This doesn't quite work in Chrome or Safari yet, but it will in a few weeks.

Default 'Reply to all,' by Mark K
When we're working on features for Gmail, the email etiquette on the team is to reply all so everyone involved is kept in the loop. Mark was an intern here this past summer who got frustrated when he'd reply to an email only to realize that he forgot to reply all and had to resend the message. Thus, this Labs feature, which makes reply all your default selection.

Vacation time, by Darick T
While planning my own vacation, I didn't want to worry about composing, starting and stopping my vacation auto-response while I was on vacation. Call me a purist, but that defeats the whole point of being on vacation! So, to make my vacation that much sweeter, I used a bit of my 20% time and whipped up Vacation Time, which lets you compose and schedule your vacation autoresponse while you're planning your vacation, rather than while you're on vacation. And scheduling is as easy as it is in Google Calendar.

So go on, try it, and have a great vacation.

See what Obama, McCain and leading political pundits are reading

R S — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:37:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Today we announced that both the Obama and McCain campaigns as well as political contributors from Newsweek to POLITICO are sharing news with Google Reader this election season. You can see their most recently shared items at google.com/powerreaders, or add the feeds from your favorite campaign or journalist to Reader to keep up with newly posted items and comments.

P.S. If you want to follow these political shared news feeds right from within Gmail, check out our post from a couple weeks ago about getting your favorite feeds in Gmail web clips.

Remote sign out and info to help you protect your Gmail account

R S — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Posted by Erwin D'Souza, Gmail Engineer

Your email account can contain a lot of personal information, from bank alerts to love letters. Email that, I'm sure, you don't always want other people to see. We understand how important your Gmail accounts are to you, so we're adding a new layer of information and control. With this new feature, you can now track your recent sessions and you can also sign yourself out remotely.

If you are anything like me, you probably sign in to Gmail from multiple computers. I, for example, occasionally sign into my Gmail account from a friend's house when I need to check an important email. Usually I remember to sign out, but every once in a while I wonder if I really did. Now I no longer have to wonder.

At the bottom of your inbox, you'll see information about the time of the last activity on your account and whether it's still open in another location:

Using the above example, a quick glance at the footer while I'm at work shows that my account is indeed open in one other location. But I recognize the IP address - it's my computer at home. Turns out I left my Gmail account open when I left home in a hurry this morning.

Your IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is a number associated with your computer when you connect to the Internet. Some of you might want to know your IP address numbers (more info on finding out your IP address below) for an extra layer of control. For others who don't want to think about IP information, you don't need to.

Continuing with the above example, I can see more details about my recent activity by clicking on the Details link:

The top table, under "Concurrent session information," indicates all open sessions, along with IP address and "access type" -- which refers to how email was retrieved, for example, through iGoogle, POP3 or a mobile phone. The bottom table, under "Recent activity," contains my most recent history along with times of access. I can also view my current IP address at the very bottom of this window, where it says "This computer is using IP address..."

With this information, I can quickly verify that all the Gmail activity was indeed mine. I remember using Gmail at the times and locations listed. Being extra cautious, I can also click on the "Sign out all other sessions" button to sign out of the account I left open at home.

Note: We are in the process of rolling this feature out to the latest version of Gmail, which is available for Firefox and Internet Explorer 7.

Gmail blog turns 1: Looking back at our 10 most read tips

R S — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:28:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

When we launched the Gmail blog exactly one year ago, our goal was to provide you with new feature announcements, insight into how the Gmail team works, and tips on how to become a Gmail ninja. We hope you've enjoyed reading our posts, and to celebrate our birthday, here's a look back at the past year and a recap of our 10 most read tips:

10) Have Gmail do your laundry - How to suggest new features for Gmail. We always like hearing from you.

9) Tips for importing old email to Gmail - A post on how to make the switch to Gmail as seamless as possible.

8) Edit contacts right from your chat list - When we released the newest version of Gmail, it came with some new bells and whistles. This one will help you clean up your chat list and change contact information quickly.

7) 2 Hidden ways to get more from your Gmail address - You can insert certain characters to your email address to get additional names out of it -- all of which still make it to your inbox.

6) How to find any email with Gmail search - To take the best advantage of Gmail search, we explain how to use search operators so you can find any email the first time.

5) 5 little-known Gmail features you may not yet know about - When we released the newest version of Gmail, there were a bunch of really useful features people didn't yet know about. So we told you about them.

4) Top 10 little known Gmail features (and Part 2) - In this post, we explained ten Gmail features that people generally didn't know about. From "custom from" to creating events in Gmail, this post goes over key features any serious Gmail user needs to know.

3) Getting Gmail anywhere: IMAP versus POP - A lot of people choose to get Gmail on mobile phones and destkop mail clients, so we went over the two most popular ways people do so and showed the key benefits of using IMAP -- which we've provided for free since the fall.

2) 3 Gmail Labs features that will spice up your inbox - This post covers how to enable and use the most popular Gmail Labs features: Superstars, Pictures in chat and Quick Links.

1) 9 reasons to archive - From the sophisticated to the snarky, these tips fueled the most viewed post in Gmail blog history. If this doesn't get you to archive, then we don't know what will.

Thanks for reading this past year, and we hope to provide even more tips this year -- so stay tuned.

Tip: Set Gmail as your default email client in Firefox 3

R S — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:48:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

For those of you using newly released Firefox 3, or willing to give it a try, you can take advantage of a new feature that lets you set Gmail as the default for all email links -- those that contain "mailto:" in them. If you're like me and don't have a default email client set up, then clicking these links typically launches an installation wizard for a destkop mail client, or opens some email software that you don't actually use.

Now you can configure Firefox to launch Gmail when you click on email address links and avoid the hassle. The folks over at Lifehacker published these tips on how to set it up:

1) Go to Gmail and sign in.

2) While in Gmail, copy and paste the following into your browser's address bar and hit enter.

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://
mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Gmail")

Google Apps users can use this code (but be sure to replace yourdomain.com with your Google Apps domain name):

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://
mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Gmail")

3) Click "Add Application" when you are prompted¹. Congrats, you just added Gmail to your browser's list of mail clients.

4) To set Gmail as your default, click on this link and you will be prompted with a dialog box listing available email applications. By selecting Gmail and checking "Remember my choice for mailto links" you won't have to tell your browser again. (You don't actually need to send an email after you click that link.)

You can always change this setting by going into "Tools" > "Options" (or "Firefox" > "Preferences," for Mac users) selecting "Applications" and going to the "mailto" option. There's a drop down next to the option that lets you change your default. Clicking "Application details" will take you to a settings page where you can completely remove Gmail or other mail apps.

¹If nothing happens when you type in the code, double check that you copied the entire snippet correctly, and if nothing happens, you probably changed an advanced setting (maybe without even knowing) and need to set it back to default. To do it, type about:config into your browser and make sure that network.protocol-handler.external.mailto is on the default setting: true.

Evolution of Gmail chat

R S — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:35:00 +0000

Nika Smith, User Experience

Often, the features we launch seem so simple that you might think they're the result of blatantly obvious design decisions. In fact, every feature is subjected to a healthy dose of scrutiny within the Gmail team, and usually that includes rapidly iterating on designs by collecting user feedback, learning what works and what doesn't, and improving on our work based on this knowledge.

Gmail chat is a great example of this: we went through handfuls of design ideas, from the tame to the insane, before coming up with the pop-up chat window (which is also called a chat "mole") that exists today. Here are a couple of the early ideas we tried out:

Chat within threads, making chats feel strongly related to the emails that may have spurred them:

Separate tabs for each chat conversation, which provided lots of space for chatting and kept these conversations separate from the inbox:

We took each of these ideas into the usability lab where users were asked to try them out and tell us what they thought. From these studies we learned that chatting was one of many multi-tasking activities that users performed, and that chats needed to be quickly available at any time, not just within a single email or on a separate page. So we tried a design reminiscent of a sticky note that stayed up on the page at all times:

Once again, we collected feedback on this design, leading to even more refinements. One of the biggest findings was that no one knew how to send a message because there was no Send button. Adding instructions (initially with a bright yellow background, and later with a more subtle design) made all the difference:

With chat and other features, collecting live feedback from real users helps evolve feature ideas into simple and more elegant experiences. These extra steps may add a little time to our development cycle, but they allow us to create a design that works well for the tens of millions of Gmail users.

3 Gmail Labs features that will spice up your inbox

R S — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Last week we launched Gmail Labs, a way for you to test out experimental Gmail features before they're ready for prime time. This week, we want to show you what the most popular Labs features can do for your inbox. To use any Gmail Labs feature* visit the Labs tab under Settings, and select “Enable” next to each one you want to turn on. When you're finished picking features, click “Save changes” to apply the new settings. Here's a mini guide to the most popular ones:

Superstars: Adds new star designs to better differentiate important email.

After enabling Superstars, simply click on the star icon repeatedly to rotate through new star options. If you have shortcuts enabled, hitting the “s” key consecutively will do the same. There are more star designs then the ones set as default -- to select different variations, click Settings and look for the Superstars section under the General tab. Drag the icons listed as “not in use” to “in use” to make changes to your star lineup. Once enabled, you can use Superstars to help prioritize and manage emails. For example, you can add a "!" icon star on emails that have critical or timely information, such as bank information, or you can add a "✓" icon star to emails associated with a task you've completed, such as paying a bill online.

Pictures in chat: Adds your friends' photos to the chat window.

Make Gmail chat a little more personal. Now you can view a picture of your friends when you chat with them. (Tip: If your friend doesn't have a picture, you can suggest one by clicking on the placeholder picture in Contacts under your friend's name).

Quick Links: Bookmarks common Gmail views.

Quick Links allows you to create a shortcut to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. Just click "Add Quick Link" to save a link to the page you are currently viewing. You can then jump to that page any time with one click. For example, you can add a link to a draft email where you keep your to do list, or an email with your frequent flyer information. You can also save a common Gmail search by conducting the search (let's say for "is:unread" -- which brings up all your unread mail) and then clicking "Add Quick Link."

If you have suggestions for ways we can improve any of the Labs features, or want to suggest a new one, please visit our Labs discussion forum. The engineers who built Gmail Labs features keep an eye on discussions, and your feedback will help them make the features great.

*Gmail Labs is currently only available in US and UK English and to Google Apps users whose administrators have opted in to new features from the control panel.

Introducing Gmail Labs

R S — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:40:00 +0000

Posted by Keith Coleman, Product Manager

We have a lot of ideas for Gmail -- many come as suggestions from Gmail users, many come from people here at Google. But there's only so much we can do at any one time.

People often ask how we decide what to build next. It's usually a mix of factors, like how many users are asking for it (think delete button, vacation responder, and IMAP, among others), how useful we think it will be (think chat, conversation view, etc.) or how much fun it will be to work on (this is actually really important). We have all sorts of debates about each option, we weigh the pros and cons, and then some of the time we probably make the wrong decision.

Gmail Labs is a way for us to take lots of the ideas we wouldn't normally pick and let you all (who use Gmail) decide whether they're good or not. When you sign in, you'll see a new page in Settings called Labs. It has a list of experimental new features, and you can enable or disable each one. Some of the popular ones will become core parts of the product, and we'll eventually retire the ones that don't get much use. We've put feedback links in there, too, so you can discuss a feature with other users and the engineer(s) who wrote it.

One of the things that we like about working at Google is that it lets us have a big, positive influence and at the same time experiment rapidly, getting ideas to users very quickly. That combo of size and speed is something we care about a lot, and we've designed a culture and company that makes it possible.

The idea behind Labs is that any engineer can go to lunch, come up with a cool idea, code it up, and ship it as a Labs feature. To tens of millions of users. No design reviews, no product analysis, and to be honest, not that much testing. Some of the Labs features will occasionally break. (There's an escape hatch.)

The result of this loosely-directed chaos is 13 Labs features, with more on the way. Some of them we've found really useful, like Quick Links, which lets you save searches and any other views in Gmail. Kai and Julie wrote Superstars, which gives you different types of stars. Dave wrote Old Snakey, which lets you play an old school style computer game when you press "&". I'm just going to go out and say it: Old Snakey is probably a bad idea. But Dave wanted to do it, so Dave did it and anyone who uses Gmail can use it. And now you can help decide whether it's a good idea. That's the kind of thing that makes a project fun to work on.

(If you want to work on Gmail, too, we're hiring. But you need an Old Snakey score above 150.)

Update: Labs is now out to all English users (US and UK), and administrators using Google Apps can choose to enable Labs by checking the "Turn on new features" box in Domain Settings.

Getting Gmail anywhere: IMAP versus POP

R S — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:50:00 +0000

Posted by Sze-jun Tsai, Help Center guru

If you access Gmail via a phone or email client using POP, you may be frustrated by the fact that any action you take, such as reading, sorting or deleting, doesn't sync with your Gmail account. You may have read and sorted all your new mail on your phone, for example, but when you log back in to Gmail using a browser, you're presented with a full inbox of unread messages that you have to re-read and re-organize. What you may not realize is that you have another option that solves these problems: IMAP.

It can be a little confusing to learn about different ways to get email on your phone or in an email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook, but this breakdown of the key differences between POP and IMAP should help you decide which way to go.

There are two ways your devices and clients can communicate with Gmail:

1. A one-way communication path (POP). Your device asks us for data and pulls it from our servers -- but that's it. Things you do on your device have no effect on the server. If you read a message on your phone, then log in to Gmail, you will see that same message marked as unread. It may start to feel like Groundhog Day.

2. A two-way communication path (IMAP). Unlike with POP, your devices talk back to our servers and sync your changes automatically with IMAP. When you sign in to your Gmail account in a web browser, actions you've taken on your email client or mobile device (like putting a message in a 'work' folder) will also appear in Gmail (your message will already have a 'work' label on it). This all happens automatically once you set up IMAP, so you don't have to read or sort all your mail twice. This is really helpful when accessing Gmail from multiple devices.

Here's a quick rundown of the key differences between IMAP and POP:

As you can see, the benefits of IMAP clearly outweigh those of POP. To set up IMAP, just follow these steps.

Tip: Edit contacts right from your chat list

R S — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:15:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

When I add a new friend to Gmail chat, sometimes my friend's email address is added as their contact name, such as hikingfan@gmail.com. I personally like to have the name of all my chat friends in my chat list so I don't get too confused as to who's who. To change this, I used to go into contacts, select the contact profile, add the name of my friend, and then save it.

But now with the new version of Gmail (launched for Firefox 2 and IE7) you can make edits to Gmail contacts directly from the chat list. I find it to be a great time saver. All you have to do is hover your mouse over one of your contacts to prompt a pop-up with contact details. If you just click on the contact name, it will automatically become an editable field. Simply type in the desired name and hit "enter." Your changes will save the name in your chat list as well as in your contacts.

Calendar Sync updated

R S — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:55:00 +0000

Posted by Shirin Oskooi, Product Manager

Thanks for all the feedback you have sent us about Google Calendar Sync. We're rolling out an update that should make it a lot more useful.

Previously, your Google Calendar email address needed to be the organizer or an attendee of your Microsoft Outlook events for the Outlook events to sync to your Google Calendar. Now, when you choose to do a 2-way sync or a 1-way sync from Outlook calendar to Google Calendar, all of your Outlook events will be synced to your Google Calendar.

If you haven't been auto-updated to Google Calendar Sync 0.9.3.2 and you don't want to wait for the update, you can download it here.

9 reasons to archive

R S — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:55:00 +0000

Posted by Kathryn McGarr, Online Operations Associate

We hear reports that many users don't archive their email. If you don't regularly click on the "archive" button or never even thought about it, here are some reasons you might want to get in the habit. Archiving just means moving mail out of your inbox and storing it for safekeeping. Your messages will be waiting for you when you click All Mail or search for them.

9. Phone numbers and addresses
You never know when you'll need a phone number someone emailed you or an address that was in a signature.

8. Procrastination
Sometimes you want to get a message out of your inbox, but you don't want to deal with organization, and you don't want to trash it.

7. Posterity
Just because you’re not famous now doesn’t mean that in forty years (or fifteen minutes) you won’t want to write your memoir.

6. Winning arguments
“But on May 5, 2005 at 8:43pm EDT you said….”

5. Mailing lists
Do you really need to know what Clintobamccain is doing every day? Auto-archive* their messages until you want to donate again.

4. Birthdays
Search for “grandma birthday” and voila, find the message you sent her last April. Aren't you glad you archived instead of deleted?

3. That guy
Remember that guy you thought you’d never need to get in touch with ever again?

2. Because you can
May as well use the free storage space. Plus, clean inbox = clean mind.

1. Fate-tempting is bad. You just never know
Thirty-one days after you send that message to the Trash and it gets permanently deleted, you're going to need it. Don't tempt the fates.

*To auto-archive, create a filter with the action "Skip the Inbox (Archive it)."

We’re hiring

R S — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Posted by Keith Coleman, Product Manager

Despite our best efforts, Gmail doesn't yet build itself. So we're looking for good people to keep making it better and better. It's fun and rewarding to work on a product that you, your friends, other people you know (and tens of millions of people someone else knows) use all the time. And if that's something you want to do, now you can learn more about what goes on behind the scenes and apply on our new hiring page.

It's hard to do on a static web page, but we wanted to give you a sense of what it's like to work on the team. Gmail was one of Google's first experimental forays outside of search, so boundary-pushing is part of our nature. We've developed new storage systems (Google never stored large amounts of user data before), new anti-spam systems (using machine learning technologies developed for search), and a new fast, modular, reusable Javascript architecture (Google never ran an AJAX app of this scale before). We try to push product boundaries, too, with lots of storage, integrated chat, and free IMAP -- stuff that just makes things better for users, even if it means an untraditional approach to business. And one of the best parts is that when you go out, people you actually know say, "Hey, I used [that thing you built]. It's cool." (And then they ask you why Gmail doesn't have folders.)

Much more is in the works, and we're looking for help, so check out our jobs page and send in your resume.

Giving group chat a go

R S — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:48:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

A friend of mine recently told me that she used group chat in Gmail for the first time the other day. She was talking to two coworkers about a new project and essentially serving as a go-between. Her solution: make it one conversation.

When she told me about this, I couldn't believe this was the first time she used group chat, which we launched in November. I've used group chat a ton, and find it especially useful for coordinating social plans with friends. I try not to do as much back-and-forth emailing to work out plans anymore. I just invite my friends to a group chat and iron out details -- it's much faster.

So in case you haven't seen it yet, you can add a person to any Gmail chat by clicking "Options" in the chat window and then "Group chat." Then start typing the person's name or email, and you'll get contacts auto-complete just like when you compose messages.

Tips for importing old email to Gmail

R S — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:23:00 +0000

Posted by Olivier Beyssac, Site Reliability Engineer

When I switched to Gmail more than a year ago, I still had a significant amount of old email stored with my old address. Because I keep messages for a long time and like to frequently search them, I wanted to move my old email to Gmail so it would all be in one place and I could access it on any device, including my mobile phone.

In the end, the move went smoothly, but I picked up a couple of tips along the way that I thought were worth sharing.

Setup
First, you need to tell Gmail how to retrieve your mail from old accounts using POP. Go to Settings > Accounts > Get mail from other accounts > Add another mail account. A new window will pop-up asking you for the email address you're going to import mail from. Fill this in and click on "Next Step."

I found it useful to label incoming messages with "Imported" (use any thoughtful label you can think of), so I could easily identify imported mail later on.

Then, validate with "Add Account" and finally, select "Yes, I want to be able to send mail as yourname@gmail.com." I'm a big fan of using the "from:me" search in Gmail that lets me look for email I sent using any name or address by simply searching "from:me." I wanted to make sure I could continue to find everything I’ve sent under all my old addresses and aliases, and this last step makes that work.

Sending mail from your old address
If you would still like to have the option of sending mail from Gmail that appears to recipients as if it were sent from your old email address, you can set up a custom "From:" by going to Settings > Accounts > Send mail as: > Add another email address.

Click on "Next Step" and then "Send Verification." You'll receive an email with instructions on how to validate your old address. Once it's set up, you can select this address in the "From" field when replying or forwarding.

It might take a while for Gmail to fetch everything from your old account, but the end result was definitely worth it for me.

Newest Gmail features now available for Google Apps users

R S — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Since Google's applications are "in the cloud," we can act on feedback and release new features very rapidly. Sometimes, though, we like to listen and learn from users before launching updates to businesses, schools and organizations that use Google Apps.

Gmail's revamped codebase was one such case, and we're happy to mention this update is now rolling out to Google Apps users who haven't already opted in to get the latest improvements. Employees, students and other Google Apps users will soon start seeing useful features like these:

And if you want to stay up to date on the latest Google Apps improvements, our new RSS feed can help you learn about changes to Google Apps as they happen. To subscribe to this feed, click this "Add to Google" button:

If you're a Google Apps administrator and you'd rather start getting new features right away instead of waiting, you can change a setting in the control panel to automatically get future features as they're released.

Calendar Sync now available

R S — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:55:00 +0000

Posted by Harish, Software Engineer

Yesterday, we launched Google Calendar Sync, a tool that lets users sync Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook calendar. Using it, you can access your Google Calendar information offline, access your Outlook calendar information online from any computer, and sync your Outlook calendars across multiple computers. Check out Shirin's post on the Google Blog for more information.

2 hidden ways to get more from your Gmail address

R S — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:10:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

I recently discovered some little-known ways to use your Gmail address that can give you greater control over your inbox and save you some time and headache. When you choose a Gmail address, you actually get more than just "yourusername@gmail.com." Here are two different ways you can modify your Gmail address and still get your mail:

Append a plus ("+") sign and any combination of words or numbers after your email address. For example, if your name was hikingfan@gmail.com, you could send mail to hikingfan+friends@gmail.com or hikingfan+mailinglists@gmail.com.
Insert one or several dots (".") anywhere in your email address. Gmail doesn't recognize periods as characters in addresses -- we just ignore them. For example, you could tell people your address was hikingfan@gmail.com, hiking.fan@gmail.com or hi.kin.g.fan@gmail.com. (We understand that there has been some confusion about this in the past, but to settle it once and for all, you can indeed receive mail at all the variations with dots.)

For me, the real value in being able to manipulate your email address is that it makes it really easy to filter on those variants. For example you could use hikingfan+bank@gmail.com when you sign up for online banking and then set up a filter to automatically star, archive or label emails addressed to hikingfan+bank. You can also use this when you register for a service and think they might share your information. For example, I added "+donation" when I gave money to a political organization once, and now when I see emails from other groups to that address, I know how they got it. Solution: filtered to auto-delete.

Arrow indicators reveal who actually sent you email

R S — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:40:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

A few months ago I wrote about how using colored labels with filters can provide an entirely new way to visualize your inbox. I just started using a feature that further helps me quickly prioritize my email. When enabled, "personal level indicators" put arrows next to messages in your inbox so you can tell if an email was addressed to you, a group, or a mailing list that you're on.

A single arrow ("›") is automatically placed next to emails sent to you and others, and double arrows ("»") next to emails that are sent just to you.

I personally get a ton of email from lists (mostly from my college days when I subscribed to student group lists after a campus activity fair), so it's helpful to see my inbox annotated with arrows that tell me which emails are likely to warrant replies. If I get a bunch of emails with no arrows at all, I know they are probably from mailing lists. Give it a try for yourself by switching the "Personal level indicators" option to "Show indicators" under Settings.

Invisible mode is here for Gmail chat

R S — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:03:00 +0000

Posted by Jonas Lindberg, Software Engineer

Sometimes you need to chat with someone about an urgent project, but can't be bothered by anyone else. And going "busy" just isn't enough -- you might still get that unwanted ping. So, as some people have already noticed, we rolled out invisible mode for the latest version of Gmail chat last Friday. With this feature, you can appear offline, and still send and receive messages. If you're using AIM in Gmail, invisible mode also makes you appear signed out on the AIM network. Invisible mode is one of the most requested chat features and so we're happy to add this option, starting in Gmail Chat, and in the future all Talk clients.

As some of you have already noted, chat could be less useful if lots of people go invisible. We'll keep an eye on it and look for your feedback to be sure we're doing what's best for the community.

Del-eat your spam

R S — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:25:00 +0000

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Even though I've worked on the Gmail team for about six months and have been a fan for years, I continue to notice new things in the product all the time. Like the other day, when out of curiosity, I checked out my spam folder to see what kind of bank scams or enlargement pills were being filtered from my innocent eyes, and I noticed something below the search box. Was that really a recipe for spicy SPAM kabobs?

It sure was -- and it didn't end there. I found all sorts of SPAM recipes including savory SPAM crescents, SPAM primavera, and for the health conscious, a gingered SPAM salad. I figured this was either the result of savvy ad targeting or a few Gmail engineers had a soft spot for the canned meat (which wouldn't be entirely surprising given the team's copious consumption of canned energy drinks). I decided to do some reconnaissance.

At first I was told that these recipes "were placed there by elves when we weren't looking" (real cute), but Keith, one of Gmail's Product Managers, eventually divulged the real story. Turns out that when they came up with the idea for Web Clips, they didn't think it made sense to show these RSS feeds and ads in the spam folder. After all, these clips should be useful and fun, but spam (of the email variety) is neither of these things. Not knowing what to put here, Keith searched for "spam recipes" and decided to make a feed out of the results. As he said, "it was just one of those late night ideas" -- probably a consequence of too many said energy drinks.

After relentlessly scouring recipes for the most delicious sounding concoctions, they came to the conclusion that spam -- a painful phenomenon plaguing email inboxes -- can actually lead you to a delightful Sunday brunch. Who's up for breakfast burritos this weekend?

New version of Gmail soon available in 37 languages

R S — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:35:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Tonight, we're starting to roll out the new version of Gmail in 37 languages.* As we first announced when we launched in English, this version, available for IE7 and Firefox 2, has an entirely new code base, which allows us to add new features more rapidly and share components with other Google applications (we now use the same rich text editor as Groups and Page Creator, and the contact manager can be seen in several Google apps). So if you were using English, you can now change your default language from the Settings menu to take advantage of a bunch of features that have recently launched in your preferred language, including:

Colored labels
Group chat
Rich emoticons
A new contact manager with a three-pane layout
A number of smaller features, such as new shortcut keys and the ability to bookmark individual emails with your browser

One side effect of this change is that it may disrupt some third-party Gmail extensions -- unsupported scripts that directly modify Gmail's code. If you don't use them, you don't need to worry about this. But if you do, we've contacted a number of the developers behind some popular extensions and many of them have updated their scripts, so make sure you're using the latest version or check back with them if you encounter any issues.

*The newest version of Gmail is not yet available for Croatian, Icelandic, Hebrew or Arabic, but you can continue using the older version in these languages. The newest version also is not yet available for Google Apps for your domain.

Updated 4/22: We're still rolling out the new version of Gmail to all languages, and we're working to have it out to all users as soon as possible.

Updated 5/5: The new version of Gmail is now fully rolled out to all users with Firefox 2 and IE7 in these languages.

Have Gmail do your laundry

R S — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:33:00 +0000

Posted by Erik Wong, Consumer Operations Associate

Gmail has a lot of great features, but maybe there's this one thing that you really wish it could do. Well, we'd like to know what it is. We're constantly building and testing new features, and many -- like free automatic forwarding, signature options, and IMAP access -- have been brought to you by popular demand.

So do you want colorful background themes? We'll look into it. Want Gmail to do your laundry? Well, it never hurts to ask. If you'd like to suggest a feature, click "Help" at the top of any page in your Gmail account. On the right side of the Gmail Help Center, you'll see a "Let us know" link in the "Suggest a feature" box. I work on the team that regularly reviews and analyzes the requests you make, and I look forward to seeing your ideas.

Gmail Help Discussion to the rescue

R S — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Posted by Sze-jun Tsai, Consumer Operations Associate

Here's the scenario: you decide to try out a new Gmail feature and suddenly you have some questions. What do you do? Come on down to the Gmail Help Discussion Group.

The Gmail Help Discussion Group is an interactive user forum where Gmail users communicate with one another. You can get quick and easy access to information for troubleshooting technical problems, share your wealth of experience with other users, get a fellow user's perspective on something that is confusing you, or just stay up to date with Gmail -- all through this community forum.

Here are some tips to help you along:

Tip #1: Someone may have already posted about your topic or question, so search or browse for previous threads before posting a new one.

Tip #2: If you're troubleshooting, try to provide as many details as possible. Specific error messages and specific actions that you took can help others understand what you're experiencing and what you've already tried. For instance, if you're having problems sending messages, specify exactly what occurs, any error messages that you receive, and your computing specifications (such as browser type and operating system) to help the group identify if your problem can be easily remedied or if it will require direct assistance from the Gmail team.

Tip #3: Keep an eye out for the "Gmail Groupies," a particularly active and helpful bunch of Gmail users who really enjoy sharing their knowledge and expertise. You can recognize them by scanning previous posts and looking for frequent contributors.

Whether you want to provide other users with help or have a question of your own, you can join the growing community of more than 200,000 members.

Your Gmail stories

R S — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:12:00 +0000

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Associate Product Marketing Manager

A few weeks ago we invited you to share your Gmail stories with the world, and over 1,500 of you responded with emails and videos describing the creative and productive ways you use Gmail. Many of you were practical, lots were sweet, most were clever, several were talented, and some of you provided a good laugh. We can't keep these to ourselves any longer, so we created a collaborative video that combines many of the stories we received. We also want to share some of the great emails you sent, so head to gmail.com/yourstory to check them out. We hope that you'll enjoy the stories as much as we do, and maybe even find some new ways to use Gmail along the way.

P.S. It's never to late to share your story.

Important changes to email deletion on the iPhone mail client

R S — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:45:00 +0000

Posted by Keith Coleman, Product Manager

There's a new software update for the iPhone. The next time you sync your iPhone with iTunes, your iPhone will be updated to version 1.1.3 of Apple's software. It has a nice new feature -- the built-in Mail app on the iPhone will now use IMAP to access your Gmail account, rather than POP, like it used to. IMAP is way better -- it keeps your mail in sync wherever you read it. If you read a message on your iPhone, it will be marked as read in your Gmail account. If you move a message to a folder on your iPhone, it will be moved to that label in Gmail. If you delete a message on your iPhone, it will be moved to the Trash in Gmail and permanently deleted in 30 days. This is different than what used to happen! Before, deleting a message on the iPhone had no effect on your Gmail account. But now, delete actually deletes! :)

If you want mail you delete on your iPhone to get archived in Gmail rather than moved to the Trash, you can manually set up IMAP using the "Other" menu option and follow the instructions in the Gmail Help Center or in our instructional video.

If you have already manually configured your iPhone to access Gmail using IMAP via this "Other" menu option, then nothing will change for you, and you're good to go. (When you delete a message on your iPhone, it will get archived in Gmail, not moved to Trash. Just as it always has.)

New "e" shortcut archives every time

R S — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:45:00 +0000

Posted by Vivek Gupta, Engineering Manager

Introducing: shortcut "e." It's a new shortcut key that archives email. You might be thinking, "Doesn't shortcut key 'y' archive email too? Why make a new way to archive?" Well, let me explain. I'm a heavy Gmail user, to say the least--I get 1,000+ emails a day. So to manage it all I have filters that auto-label emails while still showing them in my inbox. Sometimes I read them from my inbox, but many times I click on the label name to pull all of my new mail from a certain category ("label view"). In reading mail from these two views, I noticed a quirky instance where you cannot use shortcut keys to archive email while in label view.

Shortcut "y" archives when you are reading mail from your inbox, but it actually removes the label if you read email from your label view. This is because technically, "y" removes the conversation from the current view. In inbox it removes from inbox, and in label view it removes the label. So to archive in the true sense of the word (removing it from inbox view) in "label view," I had to click the "more actions" drop-down menu and actually hand-select "archive." After enabling shortcuts in Settings, tapping "e" will now archive your message no matter what. No more unnecessary mouse movements for me, and hopefully for you.

New Gmail for the iPhone

R S — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:53:00 +0000

Posted by Alex Kennberg, Google mobile team

We've just released a new look and feel for the mobile version of Gmail on your iPhone. Our goal: make Gmail fit nicely as part of the latest Google on your iPhone experience. This means that we had to make Gmail faster and more fluid.

To do that, we decided to use AJAX--a powerful set of web development techniques that make web pages more responsive. We also implemented two of the coolest and most requested features for this release: pre-fetching and auto-complete. Now when you use Google on your iPhone, Gmail will automatically pre-load all your most recent messages for you. So when you decide to read a message it will be on your screen in a snap.

Address auto-complete is my favorite new feature--and one of the most requested. I wanted to be able to type a full email address in under two seconds on the iPhone. With auto-complete you can often get the right email address on your screen within 2-3 key strokes.

Finally, our user experience designer worked hard to develop a very fluid interface that fits the whole Google experience on the iPhone. These changes take into account that you have to tap the virtual buttons with your finger, so we made sure to size everything appropriately.

To get to Gmail on your iPhone and get the full new Google experience, just go to www.google.com in your web browser, hit the Gmail tab and sign in. Google Apps users with custom domains can also use this new Gmail interface by visiting mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com. Please leave comments on the Google mobile blog and let us know what you think.

Create personal mailing lists through contact manager

R S — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:10:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

I have about eight friends from high school I like to keep in touch with frequently. We all email updates or the occasional funny YouTube video to the group, but every once in a while I'd forget to include one of them or I'd accidentally use one friend's obsolete school address. I found a really useful solution for emailing small groups like this one that is easier to use with the new contact manager interface, which we launched in Gmail for IE7 and Firefox2. You can create custom "groups" of contacts so you don't have to remember individual names or email addresses. You don't create a true mailing list, per se -- it's just a simple way to email a handful of people at once.

To create contact groups, click "Contacts" from the left-hand navigation list and then click the groups icon:

After naming your group, browse for contacts you want to add to it. You can find them by clicking "All Contacts" or by searching by name or email address. Once you locate the contact you'd like to add to your group, click on the contact name, and select the "Groups" drop down menu in the right-most pane. You can add any contact to a group this way -- or make impromptu new groups. (You can also add people to groups by clicking a group name and then typing email addresses or names in the search box at the bottom of the middle pane).

The great thing about creating contact groups is that they "auto-complete": you can type the group name as you normally would type email addresses or contact names, and by selecting the group from the drop down menu, the group's contacts are automatically inserted. Your email recipients will not see your group name when they receive the email, but instead will see all the individual contact names and email addresses listed as normal.

While this feature is great for creating efficient ways to email small groups, we encourage you to use Google Groups to manage large ones.

We’re taking a break, but you don’t have to

R S — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:10:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

We've had a busy year re-coding Gmail and providing you with a slew of new features before this holiday season. Now it's time for a break. We'll be back in January, but until then, we've assembled a list of things you can do using Gmail in case you get bored over the holiday*:

Try one of three new chat features to keep in better touch: group chat with your family, reconnect with your long lost AIM friends, or add some spirit to your smiley.
Grab a video camera and share your Gmail story with the world.
Send out your holiday cards by email -- it's cheaper than stamps and they're searchable that way.
Change your labels to holiday colors to make your inbox more festive.
Playing with your iPhone this holiday season? Then try out free IMAP access and sync your Gmail inbox across devices.

Thanks for all the feedback you've given us this year, and we hope you enjoy the newest features. On behalf of the entire Gmail team, happy holidays and have a wonderful New Year. See you in 2008.

*Some of these features only work in the latest version of Gmail, now available for English IE7 and Firefox 2 users.

Colored labels with filters: A new way to read your inbox

R S — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:45:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Colored labels make it easier to keep track of emails, and by using them with filters, I realized they can provide an almost entirely new way of visualizing my inbox based on context rather than order. By setting up filters so emails from certain senders (or on certain topics) automatically appear with colored labels, I can scan my inbox just by looking at the colors.

For example, I have filters that apply a red "Important!" label to emails sent to me by my manager, a purple "Vacation" label to emails that have "vacation" in the text, and a green "Industry News" label to emails that are sent to industry lists I subscribe to. Now when I open my email and see a bunch of red labeled messages, I know I have a lot of responding to do right away.

To set up a filter with a colored label, simply click the "Create a filter" link next to the search box. Add senders or certain words you want to keep a better eye on, click next, and assign a label by checking "apply the label" and choosing an appropriate one. Then just pick a label color by clicking the color swatch next to the label title in the left-hand navigation menu. Give colored labels with filters a try and see if it changes the way you read your inbox too.

What’s your story? Part II

R S — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:16:00 +0000

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Associate Product Marketing Manager

A few days after inviting you to share your Gmail stories, we're already impressed with the results. Among many others, so far we've heard from:

A father who uses Gmail as a digital journal for his son:

A soldier stationed in Iraq:

A record producer who completed an album without ever speaking to the artist in person:

A multi-tasking college student:

We've seen stories that are heartwarming, interesting, funny, and informative. Some people are singing, others are drawing, and some are using special effects. If you don't have a story to share, the responses might inspire you to think of a new way to use Gmail. (I'm already looking forward to starting that digital baby journal in a few years!)

Keep those stories -- and ideas -- coming; we can't wait to see what you'll think of next.

‘?’ answers your shortcut questions

R S — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Posted by Anatol Pomazau, Software Engineer

Gmail shortcuts can save you a lot time, and recently we've added even more. But with so many shortcuts it can be a challenge to remember them all. For example, did you know that "s" applies a star, "!" reports spam, and "#" moves a message to the trash? For this reason, we added a shortcut reference menu you can call up by holding "shift" and hitting the "?" key while logged in. It's easy to remember: just type "?" any time you have a question about a shortcut and need a reminder. Then click anywhere off the shortcut menu in Gmail to dismiss it. This feature works in the latest version of Gmail, currently available for English IE7 and Firefox 2 users. Don't forget to enable shortcuts in Settings --"?" is a shortcut itself. Happy shortcutting and happy holidays.

Gmail + chat + AIM = crazy delicious

R S — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:01:00 +0000

Posted by Michael Davidson, Software Engineer

I was pretty excited when we launched chat integration in Gmail. Finally I could chat and email in one place--but I couldn't chat with friends using other instant messaging services.

From the beginning, Google has been committed to open standards and interoperation for instant messaging. So when our friends at AOL agreed to let Gmail users talk to users on their network, we jumped at the chance.

Today we are happy to tell you about a new feature we've started to roll out which will enable you to sign into your AIM account and chat with your AIM buddies right inside Gmail. When you log in to AIM through Gmail chat, your AOL buddies will appear in your chat list with friends from your Google Talk network, and you will see the yellow "running man" logo to the right of your AIM friends' screen names. To your AIM friends it will look like you are logged in to AIM as usual.

Having more friends to chat with is always more fun and we hope you enjoy this new feature, which we are rolling out today to English Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 users.

P.S. If you own a large IM network and would like to work with us, have your people contact our people.

The next evolution of labels

R S — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:57:00 +0000

Posted by Dave Cohen, Software Engineer

Back in the Paleolithic Era, the world was a very different kind of place. People were hunter-gatherers, lived in caves, and kept all their email in folders*. You can't really blame them. Between tracking woolly mammoths, fashioning crude stone tools, and auditioning for commercials, having a highly tuned system for organizing email wasn't their highest priority.

But people changed. We moved out of caves and into skyscrapers. We hunt for bargains at the corner grocery. And we play video games simulating ourselves playing video games.

As we've changed, so too have our demands for email. Out of the email primordial ooze, Gmail was born with evolutionarily advantageous features like threaded conversations, a mitochondrial symbiosis between mail and chat, and labels. Most email solutions make users slot their emails into bland manila folders, classifying their contents as either black or white, with no subtle shades of gray. But where do you put the heated debate about M&M color superiority: the "ridiculous philosophical discussions," "all things brown," or "chats with mom" folder? With labels, you no longer have to choose. You can sort it all three ways.

Today, we're happy to announce the next evolution of labels: the colored label. Until now the label has been a little inconspicuous creature, subtly suggesting categorical associations in its simple green coat. Oh, we've seen the colored label here and there, its precursors surfacing in various experiments and Greasemonkey scripts; but the label has never before been so brazen, so bold. How will it use its new colors? Will it disguise itself with the chameleon's camouflage or clamor for attention with the monarch butterfly's vivid contrast?

Me? I'm subscribed to a lot of mailing lists: "The Britney Spears Fanboy Club," "Foie Gras Lovers Anonymous," and "UFO Sightings Daily," just to name a few. I get so much mail from my lists, I filter and archive most of it right away but I add labels just in case I need to find it again later. Those labels are my chameleons draped in subtle tones of green and blue. They're there doing their job, but I barely notice them. Every once in a while I get mail that's really important. These emails get my monarch butterfly labels, sporting bright red and yellow. Thanks to colored labels, it's easy to scan my inbox and immediately find all the emails that are really important to me.

Evolution is a great thing.

*P.S. We actually kinda like folders. In fact, we're doing some work to add some folder-y-ish functionality. Stay tuned.

P.P.S. Several new features we've launched, including colored labels, only work in the newest version of Gmail, currently available for IE7 and Firefox 2. Please upgrade your browser to start using those features now.

Group chat and rich emoticons now available in Gmail chat

R S — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:56:00 +0000

Posted by Sergey Solyanik, Software Engineer

The new Gmail Seattle team is happy to announce two additions to Gmail's built-in chat capabilities: group chat and enhanced emoticons.

To start a group chat, click "Group chat" from the "Options" menu when chatting. Enter the names of the people you want to add, and, bingo, you're in your very own chat room. All the familiar features such as chat archiving and taking the chat off the record still work as well.

You'll also now notice a smiley face in the bottom right-hand corner of your chat window. You can still use regular emoticon keyboard shortcuts, such as :) or =P, but this menu lets you select the style of the emoticons you send. Beyond the good old classic Gmail smileys there are two brand new, rich emoticon styles.

These features only work with the latest version of Gmail, which we are still rolling out to IE6, international and Google Apps users. We're looking forward to using Gmail's new modular architecture to bring you more features like these with faster turnaround.

Tips from a Digital Mom – Getting ‘cultural’ with the family during the holidays

R S — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:25:00 +0000

Posted by Jen "Digital Mom" Grant, Group Product Marketing Manager

Every once in a while my husband and I wonder why we don't do more "cultural" things with the kids, especially around the holidays. We're so busy and we just don't have the time to keep up with what's going on around town or around the area. Usually, when we do go somewhere it's because we bump into someone who tells us that the local dance group is doing The Nutcracker, not because we read the paper or got any announcements.

But just the other day, I discovered the public calendar search button in Google Calendar. Of course, I had known it was there, but it had never occurred to me that events in my local area would be included. Just to experiment, I typed in Palo Alto, CA kids and found a fabulous calendar that showed me every day that there are events for families during the holiday season. One example I found is "Helicopter Santa" on Dec. 1: cookies, candy canes, and Santa at the Hiller Aviation Museum. I added this calendar to my own and now I can quickly check what's going on at any time.

My husband wonders how I suddenly seem to know everything. I just smile.

5 little-known Gmail features you may not yet know about

R S — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 03:12:00 +0000

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

When we began rolling out a new Gmail code architecture a few weeks ago, we also launched some new features to help improve the speed and convenience of managing email. I've been using several of these new additions over the last few weeks, and while they might seem small on their own, they really can add up to save you a lot of time and hassle. That's why I decided to list my five favorite new features that are so new, you may not have noticed them. We are still rolling them out to IE6, international and Google Apps users, but for those of you who noticed a new contact manager among other recent improvements in our latest version, here they are:

5. "Archive and next" shortcut
We added a bunch of new shortcuts to Gmail, but one that I've found to be a true time-saver is what I call the "archive and next" shortcut. When I have a lot of mail, it can be really annoying to have to open a message, click "Back to Inbox" and then select the next email I want to read. So once you enable shortcuts in Settings, you can simply press the left bracket key "[" while viewing a message to archive it, and then immediately open the next oldest one. When I see a long list of unread messages, I like to open the first one and then just hit "[" to swiftly move through my mail and archive as I go. (P.S. By clicking the right bracket "]" you can also move the other way if you want to open newer messages after you archive).

4. Share mail searches with friends
How many times do your friends tell you, "I can't find that email you sent me." Now you can prove that you did indeed send that message, despite the accusations. All you have to do is search for the message using your expert mail searching skills, and when you find it listed in the results, just copy and paste the URL and email it to your friend. When he or she goes to that link while in Gmail, your friend's Gmail will run the same search you ran and will be able to locate that "lost" email instantly. For example, if you wanted to share a search for "pick me up at airport," so flight information can be located, you would send over this URL: http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/pick+me+up+at+airport.

3. Browser navigation and history
Your web browser is now a great way to navigate Gmail. Instead of having to find the right links on the page to move from inbox to messages to other Gmail views, you can use the browser navigation buttons (back and forward) to jump back and forth between emails. You can also open your browser history and click on specific emails that you've read to go right back to them. This allows you to quickly access certain emails without having to re-read your inbox. Browser history is something that often doesn't work well on complex web apps like Gmail, but we've gone to great lengths to make it work right.

2. Bookmark emails
I frequently need to save a single email for a period of time, such as a message that includes an important phone number. But I don't want to create a separate label for one message, and I also don't want to archive all the email that comes in after that message just to keep that thread near the top of my inbox--and hopefully the top of my mind. This problem is now easily solved by a new ability to bookmark specific emails. All emails now have dedicated URLs, so just by adding a browser bookmark while viewing a message, you can return to it whenever you want, just like a regular web page--although you will still have to log in to Gmail if you've signed out.

1. "Filter messages like this"
I find filters to be one of the most useful features in Gmail, but sometimes it can be hard to set them up quickly. So we added a new capability that makes a filter based on the message you are reading, so you can keep track of future similar emails. By clicking on the dropdown menu in the upper right-hand corner of every email (the upside-down triangle), you can now see the option to "Filter messages like this." Not only can you easily create a filter based on the sender, but this is especially handy if you are trying to filter emails sent to mailing lists. We automatically set up a filter for you based on the "list ID" header, which does a better job of finding emails sent to mailing lists.

With a touch of style, Gmail gets some new threads

R S — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:30:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Systrom, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Congratulations to Robert Gould, the winner of our Threadless t-shirt competition. With much deliberation, we picked his design out of 420 submitted designs to win a pretty sweet prize package that includes an iPhone and some other goodies. His winning design is entitled 'Hello Dave':

We'd like to thank all the contributors for their snazzy designs - we loved all of them. If you'd like, you can pick up a copy of Robert's winning t-shirt over at Threadless, and even post a creative picture of yourself wearing the shirt.

P.S. We aren't making any money on this; all proceeds go to Threadless.

IMAP access now available for all users

R S — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:20:00 +0000

Posted by David Murray, Associate Product Manager

Last week we announced we were providing you with free IMAP access and said we would roll out the feature over time as fast as we could. I'm happy to say that all Gmail users can now enable IMAP and sync their inbox across devices. Right now you'll only see IMAP settings in Gmail if you're using the English (US) interface, but IMAP will appear for all languages in the coming weeks. Check out our Help Center to learn more about IMAP, or watch our video to learn how to quickly set it up on the iPhone.

Update: I'm also pleased to say that Gmail users with custom email addresses (through Google Apps) can now enable IMAP too.

How our spam filter works

R S — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:56:00 +0000

Posted by Todd Jackson, Gmail Product Manager

I got lucky in April 2004, when Gmail had just launched, and I snagged one of the first invitations (I didn't work at Google at the time, but had a few friends who did). One of the first things I noticed was the spam filter. I had used another webmail service for the previous few years and was used to seeing spam in my inbox every day. With Gmail, I almost never did, and what's more, I didn't have legitimate email ending up in the spam folder (I eventually just stopped looking there). This is still true today, even though I've had my email address for 3+ years and use it on many sites around the web.

Now that I work on Gmail, not only do I keep an eye on my personal email, but I also monitor Gmail-wide stats which rigorously measure how our spam filters are doing. And despite an increase in spam targeted at Gmail, we're keeping more unwanted messages out of your inbox than ever before:

We get mail and read posts all the time from people who've noticed these results:

"None of my real emails have slipped into the spam folder and I remember only one spam reaching my inbox in the period I've been using Gmail. Spam is the bane of the Internet and it is refreshing to see Gmail put up such a good fight against it." - Eric, who wrote into our support team

"I've been using Gmail as my main email account ever since I started receiving an average of 2,500 emails a day...of which 70 percent are...personal health products, free software, and more! If not for this wonderful spam filter of Gmail, I'd have to spend 48 hours sitting in front of my mail 24/7 just to keep up!" - Nicholas, CNET blogger

To help explain how our spam filter works, we put together a video starring some of our anti-spam engineers. Enjoy!

Code changes to prepare Gmail for the future

R S — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:20:00 +0000

Posted by Dan Pupius, Gmail engineer

When Gmail launched in 2004, the web was a very different place: people's expectations were different, browser capabilities were less advanced, and certain terms that are now commonplace on software engineer résumés hadn't even been coined yet.

In the past three and a half years we have launched a number of cool features: deep chat integration, voice mail, Google Docs integration, and most recently, free IMAP. During this time we've learned a lot about building large web applications and what happens when you push web browsers to their limits.

So recently the Gmail team has been working on a structural code change that we'll be rolling out to Firefox 2 and IE 7 users over the coming weeks (with other browsers to follow). You won't notice too many differences to start with, but we're using a new model that enables us to iterate faster and share components (we now use the same rich text editor as Groups and Page Creator, and the Contact Manager can be seen in several Google apps). A few other things you will notice are some new keyboard shortcuts and the ability to bookmark specific messages and email searches.

We have also been fanatical about speed. Even on a fast Internet connection, it can take a second to request and render a new web page, and when you read a lot of mail, these seconds can accumulate to hours waiting for email to load. We've spent a lot of time profiling all parts of the application, shaving milliseconds off wherever we can, and figuring out workarounds for some pretty deep-rooted issues with the current browser implementations. Some of the most common actions should be faster now. For instance, we prefetch messages in the current view, so when you open an email your browser doesn't have to talk to Google's server; it just displays the message. These techniques really shine on newer browsers and computers. Using an alpha version of Safari 3 on a MacBook, we're seeing sub-200ms times when opening messages—pretty quick.

One side effect of this change is that if you're using third-party Gmail extensions, they're likely to stop working. We've contacted a number of the developers behind some popular extensions and provided them with an opportunity to create fixes, so check back with them for updates. We're sorry that it may be a bit of a inconvenience, but we're trying to make this change as smooth as possible.

The team has a bunch more things in the works, so stay tuned.

Update (11/9): While we (like most web services) don't officially support third-party extensions like Greasemonkey scripts, we realize that some of our most active users want to write and run them. Because these scripts directly modify a web service's code rather than using a stable API, they tend to be fragile to even small changes in a web app's code (and can even create bugs in the web app itself).

To make this easier on our Greasemonkey users, we've recently added an experimental Gmail/Greasemonkey API that should make these types of scripts easier to write and more robust to code changes. (Note that this applies only to users who have installed Greasemonkey scripts -- if the term "Greasemonkey" evokes little more for you than an image of an oily mechanic, then you needn't worry about any of this.)

Sync your inbox across devices with free IMAP

R S — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:02:00 +0000

Posted by David Murray, Associate Product Manager

There are two online petitions I've signed in my life. One was for a "Xena: Warrior Princess" movie. The other, which I signed a few months before starting at Google, was for Gmail IMAP. As some of you know, IMAP is the best way to access your email from multiple devices (e.g. phone or desktop). It keeps the same information synced across all devices so that whatever you do in one place shows up everywhere else you might access your email.

For example, I can:

read an email in Gmail, then
move it to the "Starred" folder on my iPhone, then
archive it by moving it to "All Mail" in Thunderbird, then
see all of those changes on my Blackberry (or any of the above devices for that matter).

For the past few years, we've offered POP access, which is similar to IMAP but lacks one critical feature: your changes made on other devices aren't seen in Gmail when you log back in. Instead you are presented with a list of unread mail, and you must re-read and re-sort everything. For this reason, as soon as I started at Google, IMAP was one of the first things I asked about. Since then, I've seen countless blog posts, requests, chats, and just about everything else asking, "Are you guys ever going to do IMAP?" Well now I can say: Yes. Yes, we are doing IMAP. In fact, we are doing it for you for free on all devices and platforms.

As we roll out the feature over the next couple of days, you will be able to use Gmail at work, in your car, or just about anywhere on any device, and actions you take will be automatically synced with Gmail on the web (and remember it works the other way too: anything you do on the Web will be seen on your phone or in your mail client). Just click the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab in your Gmail "Settings" and turn it on. (Psst. If you don't see the "IMAP" in the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab, then check back soon. We are giving it to users as fast as we can).

Now if only they'll make that Xena movie...

More Gmail storage coming for all

R S — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:05:00 +0000

Posted by Rob Siemborski, Gmail Engineer

When people ask me about my job, one of the common questions I get is, "Where does Gmail put all that mail?" I generally answer by pointing them to a web site like this one. While that's not exactly how it works, we do spend a lot of time working to make sure our users have all the space they need.

In April 2005, we started increasing Gmail storage as part of our "Infinity+1" storage plan. At that time, we realized we'd never reach infinity, but we promised to keep giving Gmail users more space as we were able. That said, a few of you are using Gmail so much that you're running out of space, so to make good on our promise, today we're announcing we are speeding up our counter and giving out more free storage.

And, just in case you are like my friend Miriam, whose sister sends minute to minute photo updates of her kids in RAW format, then we still have a paid storage program where you can get your fix, and we're giving you more space than before for the same price.

By the way, businesses, schools and organizations using Google Apps to get Gmail on their own custom addresses (like Google does for our @google.com accounts) will get a storage boost in the coming days, too. Standard and Education Edition storage (now at 2GB) will begin matching Gmail's counter, and Premier Edition users get a whopping 25 GB (up from 10 GB).