1. keyboard shortcuts

Gmail inbox is equipped with some keyboard shortcuts, some keyboard shortcuts are available in the default view, but some only work if you’ve turned them on. First we have to turn on Keyboard shortcuts (Keyboard shortcuts aren’t supported on all keyboards), for that open Gmail, in the top right corner of the inbox you can see Settings icon, click Settings . Scroll down to the “Keyboard shortcuts” section, select Keyboard shortcuts on. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.

Now you can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate your inbox and messages, format text, and complete actions like archiving and deleting. Some of the essential keyboard shortcuts are given below,

Now just look how it works. First go to settings and enable keyboard shortcuts, as seen on the above picture. After enabling keyboard shortcuts, just press the c button on the keyboard. You can see the compose box popup on the screen. Now press ‘d’ button, the compose box opens up in a separate new tab. ‘/’ button will guide you to the search box. You can find the ‘/’ button in number pad, hitting the button will guide the cursor to search box in the mail box, you can start search easily by typing the query it on the box. Click on ‘.’ button (again in number pad) will guide you to more action menu, and it will open up and shows “Mark all as read”. You can use other buttons in the someway.  To open keyboard shortcut help, use “?”. To move to new conversation in your Gmail use ‘k’, back to older conversation use ‘j’. To jump to specific section like inbox, sent messages, draft etc. there are shortcuts for it. Go to starred conversations ‘g + s’, to go to sent messages ‘g + t’
to go to Drafts ‘g + d’, to go to your Inbox ‘g + i’. To go to Contacts ‘g + c’, to go to Tasks ‘g + k’, to go to label ‘g + l’. To Delete ‘#’, to
Reply ‘r’, to Reply all ‘a’, to
Reply all in a new window ‘Shift + a’ . To Forward ‘f’, to forward in a new window ‘Shift + f’.

There is a big list of keyboard shortcuts available you can read the complete keyboard shortcuts from here.

2. Recall Sent Emails or Undo Send in Gmail

Yes, you heard it right. You can recall your sent emails in Gmail. To enable the feature, go to settings and look for ‘Undo send:’, there you can see ‘Enable Undo Send’, check the tick mark to enable the feature. Just below you can see the cancellation period in seconds, you can increase this to maximum 30 seconds. That means your email will send only after 30 seconds. It is not actually recalling the sent mail, instead it delays the time to the email and wait for the user response. If the user noticed that that he send the email to a wrong person, he will get a chance to recall the email or Undo send the email. This is a nice feature, sometimes it will be a lifesaver if you are a person like sending your personal email carelessly to your boss ! or sending an email to your wife that is meant for your lady colleague !!

3.  Precise search in Gmail

Most of us had a bad experience with a crowded inbox with tons of wanted and unwanted mails. Some of them are needed, some of them are newsletters and promotions from some companies, some have business email that you want to remember, some are some personal emails that you want to keep for further reference, all are dumbed in a box ! The difficulty arises when you want to find a particular email from the mail box, sometimes we need mails from some particular persons, sometimes wee need mail received on a particular date, sometimes from a particular email id. Finding is very difficult if you are not a power user. You can save time if you know these tips,

Specify the sender –
from:
[Usage:- from: bigboss]

Specify a recipient – to: [Usage:-to:jack]

Words in the subject line – Subject: [Usage:- subject:dinner]

Messages with a YouTube video – has:youtube [Usage:- has:youtube]

Messages with a certain label –label: [Usage:-label:friends]

Messages with an attachment – has:attachment [Usage:- has:attachment]

Attachments with a certain name or file type – filename: [Usages:- filename:pdf,  filename: homework.txt]

You can see the full list of Gmail search operators you can use with Gmail from here.

Finally, Gmail had come with a new idea to use tab to arrange emails. The new tabbed inbox organizes email into five optional tabs. The tabs are primary, social, promotions, updates and forums. You choose the tabs you want. So each kind of email will fall under specific tab. These new tabbed arrangement make it easy to read messages.  This will really simplify the email reading experience.  Handling the email becomes more easier with the new tabs, if you want to move a message to a different tab,  simply drag and drop email into the tab that you want. To display a message in the primary tab, just star a message. This starred message will show right in the primary tab which ensures that you don’t lose sight of it.  You can arrange a sender in a particular tab, so the emails from him will always appear only in that tab. Your primary tab is shown when you open your Gmail, you can access other tabs from there. The new Gmail inbox is also available in Gmail’s official mobile apps on Android 4.0+ devices as well as the iPhone and iPad.

Wondering how to set the new tabbed Gmail interface. Simple,first go to the settings (which is displayed using a gear symbol).Then select the ‘Configure Inbox’ option from the drop down list as appears on the above screenshot. Now you will be welcomed with a popup box. You can see the tab settings in the box. Gmail allows five different tabs to be set up on the inbox-primary, social, promotions, updates and forums. You can select the desired tabs from the popup box and ‘save’ settings once you are done.

Now the tabbed interface is active and you will be noticed the five tabs appears on the inbox as shown like in the below figure. The ‘Primary’ tab is the default tab, where the important messages and stared messages will appear. The next one is ‘Social’, the social messages from Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter are displayed here. You can get a quick look at the number of messages receive on each tab and from where the emails are received. The third tab is ‘Promotions’, the offers and promotions are appeared on this tab. You eBay and Google offers are appeared in this tab. The update tab displays updates from sites.

Did you tested the new tabbed interface in Gmail? How is your experience? Do you have any suggestion to organize emails in a more better way in Gmail?

At present the Google drive based feature available in the new compose feature which the Gmail introduced recently. So you should enable the new compose box to use this feature. Then the file size bigger than 25MB size first transfer to the Google drive in order to attach  them in Gmail. Users can also paste Google Drive links directly into emails to share a file or can attach videos, PDF, images, etc. Gmail will double-check that your recipients all have access to any files you’re sending and whenever you send a file from Drive that isn’t shared with everyone. At that point you’ll be prompted with the option to change the file’s sharing settings without leaving your email as shown in the below screenshot.

Wondering what is the new compose feature? The new compose feature, opens the new message compose box in a pop-up window, just like Gmail chats. So you don’t want to leave your inbox for sending a new message. This feature makes it easy to reference any other emails without ever having to close your draft. You can even do a search or keep an eye on new mail as it comes in. The compose window works the same way as  Gmail chats, you can write multiple messages at once and minimize a message to finish it later. You can see the below screenshot  with the popup compose feature.

With the new compose feature and with the fine integration of Google with Gmail makes the email more powerful which couldn’t compare with other similar service at this point. We tested the new compose feature and we are delighted by seeing it’s performance. You can view our earlier article about, take journey with Gmail to know how the emails from our browser safely reaches the recipients account. What’s your opinion about this new feature from Gmail?

   But have you ever wondered where your message goes after you hit the button “send?” in your mail box. We may not bothered about what happens after hitting the send button. Did you ever think, how does an email travel from your email mailbox to your friend’s computer or mobile or tablet or across the country or around the world?

  Google is answering these questions with a new page filled with animations, visit  Story of Send. This new site gives you a behind the-scenes look into how all that virtual information makes its journey through the real world from the Internet service provider to Google data center and beyond. In the site you will find everything from where Gmail filter for spam and scan for viruses to how Google minimize the impact on the environment through energy efficiency and renewable power.

   Google has included enough videos and photos throughout the animated journey which helps you to explore certain areas more deeply. The following video shows the story of email send.

What Happens to Your Email

• The journey of email send begins when you click send button on the screen in the Story of Send page.
• Once your message leaves your Internet Service Provider (ISP), it enters an Internet backbone router. Here’s where Google picks up your message and guides it to the closest Google data center. To provide the best possible user experience, Google try to pick up your requests as early as possible from the local ISP.
• Then Google protect your message with a wide range of security measures. Security cameras, iris scans and fingerprint scans at Google data centers are just a few of the measures they take to secure and protect your information.

• When your email reaches the data center, it needs some guidance on where to go next. The networking room sends your message on its way, directing it to the servers that handle Gmail.
• Your message then enters Google’s server floor. Google’s servers support many products at a time — that’s “the cloud.” —more searches and more Gmail with fewer servers and less energy.

• Google servers work together to process your data, including duplicating your message to create backups, scanning it for viruses, and filtering for spam. Google’s all servers are also custom-builds, so they are 93% efficient.
• And finally the email is send to your senders inbox. Thus he can read emails in his computer or smartphone or in his tablet computer.

All these things are presented nicely in Storyofsend . Did you liked it?

    Now the video chat feature in Gmail is upgraded with the Hangout option. You can now chat face-to-face-to-face in with up to nine persons in Gmail. To  do this, start a Google+ Hangout from Gmail to video chat with up to nine people at once and can watch YouTube videos with friends. To get started, click on the hangout button at the top of your chat list in Gmail. The old video chat in Gmail was based on peer-to-peer technology, but the new Hangouts utilize the power of Google’s network to deliver higher reliability and enhanced quality. Using the new Hangouts feature you will now be able to reach your friends not only when they are using Gmail but also if they are on Google+ in the browser or on their Android or iOS devices.

     This new feature will available to all Gmail users, but if you and the person you are chatting with also use Google+, then you will get even more from the Hangouts experience. The important thing with new feature is you can do video chat with up to nine people at once, watch YouTube videos together, collaborate on Google documents and also share your screen.The Hangouts has a bunch of fun effects that you can try out, like you can wear a virtual mustache or pirate hat.

     Have you experienced the new Hangouts feature in Gmail? Did you liked it? You can do more with Hangouts, if you and your friends have Google+ accounts and don’t forget to share your experience with our readers.