- Some useful gmail features aren’t immediately obvious, like the ability to schedule emails.
- You can also snooze conversations, control who can forward messages, and even retrieve emails you didn’t send. I don’t want to send.
- here are 11 hidden gmail features you can use to get the most out of the service.
gmail is a daily workhorse for most people, but it’s not the flashiest of productivity programs. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like it has much to offer.
In reality, there are many features hidden under the surface that you could go years without noticing. That’s unfortunate, because many of these features can streamline your workflow and make Gmail a much more useful tool.
These are 11 of the best features hidden in plain sight in Gmail.
pack more in gmail inbox
The gmail web page has a somewhat strange default view. Not many emails can fit on the screen at once because attachments are displayed on the second line. You may not know that there are three density options that can make much better use of screen real estate. click on the settings icon in the upper right (in the shape of a gear) and, in the density section, choose between default, comfortable and compact. convenient and compact options remove the attachment line and show more emails.
use a reading pane similar to outlook
By default, gmail is configured to display email in an awkward way: there is no preview of messages, just a list of messages. however, you can make gmail behave much more like outlook. click the settings icon in the top right, and in the reading pan section, click to the right of inbox or below inbox. both display the selected email on the screen.
schedule emails so no one knows you were working at midnight
You can schedule email to arrive at a specific time, which is especially useful if your organization has work-life rules about not sending email after business hours, or if you want a particular email arrives at a specific time for outreach purposes. , for instance. When you’re ready to send your message, click the down arrow to the right of the send button and choose the date and time you want to send your message.
postpone a conversation you don’t want to deal with right now
If you like a clean inbox but can’t handle all your email at once, gmail makes it easy to keep important messages from getting buried under a flood of emails you’re saving for later. you can click “snooze” on an email, which makes it disappear until you’re ready to deal with it again.
To do this, hover over an email in your inbox and look for the sleep icon on the far right. click it and choose the date and time you want to see the message again. it will return to your inbox automatically at that time.
customize your email address
One of Gmail’s best-kept secrets is that you can customize your email address, either to make it easier to read or to send subtle variations to different recipients. you can insert periods anywhere in your email address (gmail ignores those characters), so if your email address is firstlastname@gmail.com, you can convert it to first.lastname@gmail.com when an organization requests your Email address.
Also, you can add anything you want to your email address with one or more plus signs. for example, you can convert firstlastname@gmail.com to firstlastname+newsletter@gmail.com for newsletter subscriptions.
You can monitor your incoming email addresses to see who sold your email address or shared it with others, for example, and you can set up filtering in Gmail to classify incoming messages based on these customizations.
use confidential mode to limit the life of an email message
If you have sensitive information that you want to make sure doesn’t sit in your inboxes forever, you can send it using gmail’s confidential mode. When you’re ready to send an email, click the confidential mode toggle icon (shaped like a padlock with an embedded clock) at the bottom of the email message and choose the date to send it. email expiration.
When you send it, it will appear to be an ordinary email to other gmail users, although non-gmail recipients will receive an email with a link to the original message.
translate email
You’ll never have to search for google translate again when you receive an email in a foreign language. when you’re viewing the content of a message, click the three-dot menu in the top right. choose translate message and you will immediately see that the content appears in English.
retrieve emails up to 30 seconds after clicking send
You may already know that you can undo a sent email immediately after clicking send. it’s a handy way to remember something you immediately realize wasn’t ready to send. Unfortunately, the five seconds that Gmail gives you is often not enough. however, you can change that to 10, 20, or even 30 seconds.
click the settings icon at the top of the page, and then click view all settings. in the undo send section, use the dropdown menu to change the cancellation period to the time you prefer.
type faster with gmail typing suggestions
Whether you don’t know what to say next or just want to save some time, gmail can help you write suggestions. the smart compose feature completes sentences as you type. if you write something like “what should we order for dinner?” and then start your next sentence with “let”, gmail can suggest the words “I know” to complete the sentence. To accept the gmail suggestion, press the tab key.
To enable this feature, click the settings icon at the top of the page and then click view all settings. in the smart writing section, click writing suggestions.
save attachments easily to google drive
Sometimes the best features are hiding in plain sight. If you receive attachments in an email, you can save them to your Google Drive by hovering over the attachment and then clicking the add to drive button. after clicking the button, you will have the opportunity to organize it in a subfolder; otherwise it will appear in the top folder, my drive.
make subfolders to organize your gmail
google allows you to classify and organize your messages by tags, which are google’s versions of what would normally be folders in most other email programs. tags may appear to be “flat” (they cannot be nested with subtags), but appearances are deceiving. if you want to create a hierarchy of subtags, it’s easy to do. To the right of any tag, click the three-dot menu and then select add subtag. you can create multiple levels of labels if you want; just click the three-dot menu to the right of a sub-label and repeat the process.