Labels: drag and drop, hiding, and more

Wednesday, July 01, 2009 9:07 AM

Posted by Damian Gajda, Software Engineer

A few months ago Gmail got some new buttons and keyboard shortcuts to make labeling easier, especially for those of you accustomed to that familiar folder feel. Now we're making some more changes to Gmail's labeling toolkit.


1) New location for labels
You'll notice your labels in a new location on the left of your inbox (or on the right, for those of you using the Arabic, Hebrew, or Urdu versions of Gmail). Instead of having their own section, your labels are now above your chat list, grouped together with Inbox, Drafts, Chats and other system labels.

2) Label hiding and showing
You now have control over which of your labels show. We've done our best to get you started by automatically showing the labels you use most and hiding the rest. Label hiding is my favorite new feature, since it saves me from having to look through labels I rarely use. If I ever need to reach any of my old labels, I just click the "more" link.


You can show, hide, or delete a label by clicking the down-arrow to the left of that label.


If you want to make a lot of changes at once, go to the Labels tab under Settings where you can edit labels in bulk.

For those of you who created label names like _stuff or ++todo++ to force your most-used labels to the top of the list (come on, you know who you are, I did it too...), you don't have to come up with clever tricks like that anymore ;)

3) Drag and drop
You can now drag messages into labels, just like you can with folders. This does the exact same thing as "Move to" -- it labels and archives in one step.


You can drag labels onto messages too. It's the same thing as using the "Label" button. To label or move many messages at once, first select the messages and then drag and drop the label.


It's also possible to drag labels into the "more" menu to hide them and vice versa. If you only want to move a couple labels around, I've found it quicker than going to Settings.

All of these changes also mean the end of Right-side Labels, an experimental Gmail Labs feature. This is the first Labs feature we're retiring. (The idea behind Labs was always that things could break or disappear at any time or they might work so well that they become regular features. More on that soon...) Now that labels aren't in their own little box and take up much less space, moving them around the screen didn't seem as important. We realize quite a few of you used and liked Right-side Labels, so if you feel strapped for left nav screen real estate without it, try turning on Right-side Chat in Labs instead.

We hope these new changes make labeling even easier and help you stay organized. We'll be rolling out these labeling features for everyone throughout the day, so if you don't see them right away please check later today.

So, you want to be a Gmail ninja?

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 10:02 AM

Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Marketing Manager

If you got 100 new messages, how long would it take you to get through them all? An hour? Five minutes? How would you find the important ones, reply to the ones that require an immediate reply, and mark the ones that you needed to take care of later? Would you use stars, filters, keyboard shortcuts, labels? What about Gmail Labs like tasks or canned responses?

Everybody has their own system for managing email, but some are definitely more efficient than others. Even if you only get a few messages a day, there are probably some simple things you can do to make it easier to get through your inbox and maybe even have a little fun along the way. We know time is valuable, so we asked lots of Googlers for their tips and tricks on how they make the most of Gmail, and we combined the best of these into a guide at www.gmail.com/tips, cheekily entitled "Become a Gmail Ninja." The tips are categorized into ninja belts (white, green, black and master ) based on how much mail you get each day.



For a handy reference that you can pin to your wall or keep on your desk, we even made a printable version of the guide where all the tips fit on one page front and back. And for the first 1024 of you who want them, we'll send a limited-edition, laminated guide for free. Just fill out this form with your address. Sorry, we can only ship to addresses in the US. If you're not one of the lucky 1024, you can still buy a laminated guide at www.barcharts.com.



If you're already a Gmail ninja and have your own tips you'd like to share, let us know and we'll add the best ones to the online guide.

*Our lawyers asked us to make sure it was clear that your contact information won't be maintained longer than necessary to send you the laminated guide and that this offer is "void where prohibited and only while supplies last."

Update (11:59am): Well, that was fast. We've run out of the free laminated guides, but if you weren't part of the first 1024 people to sign up, you can still can buy them for $1.25 at www.barcharts.com/gmail.

New fields for Gmail contacts and better importing too

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 5:20 PM

Posted by Benjamin Grol, Product Manager

Up until now, Gmail only supported some contact fields. Whenever someone imported their contacts from apps like Outlook and OS X Address Book, we used to put fields Gmail didn't recognize into the contact's notes section. Based on feedback from you, we added support for more contact fields (like birthday and website) and now store each of these fields separately, which makes syncing and round-tripping your data work better. We updated the standalone contact manager with this improvement last month and now it's available in Gmail too, with support for Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail and Yahoo in CSV format, and OS X Address Book in vCard format.

With all your contact info in Gmail, you can access it from anywhere, sync your contacts to your mobile phone or other devices, and more easily collaborate on Google Docs and invite people to Calendar events. We're working hard to make Gmail contacts even more useful, so please keep the feedback coming.

Tip: Check and reply from multiple email addresses in Gmail

Friday, June 12, 2009 4:46 PM

Posted by Joyce Sohn, Product Marketing Manager

It's that time of year when students are graduating, and in many cases getting yet another email address to check — an alumni account — as a graduation present.

Whether you have an alumni address, a work account, or your own domain that you like to use, rather than logging in and out of multiple accounts, you can set yourself up so all your mail ends up in your Gmail inbox. And you can send mail from any of the other addresses you own right from Gmail as well.

There are two steps to make this happen:

1. Set up mail forwarding or fetching
Many email providers offer free auto-forwarding to other accounts. Log into your non-Gmail account and set your Gmail address as the forwarding target. If your other account doesn't offer forwarding but supports POP3 access, you can use Mail Fetcher in Gmail to automatically check your other account for new mail and download it to Gmail.

2. Set up custom "From:"
Gmail's custom "From:" feature lets you send mail with one of your other email addresses listed as the sender in place of your Gmail address. There's a good step-by-step for how to set this up in the Help Center, but the basics are adding the address you want to use and then verifying that it belongs to you. Once you have your custom "From:" set up, you can pick which address you want to reply from in the "From:" address drop down while composing messages.

P.S. If you're a recent grad and want more tips on how to use Google during this transition period, check out the Google for Students Blog, where we'll be posting more tips like this weekly for the next couple months.

Like puzzles? Get ready for the Day in the Cloud Challenge on June 24th

Thursday, June 11, 2009 1:50 PM

Posted by Corey Anderson, Software Engineer (and puzzle creator)

Flying 500 miles per hour at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, it always seemed odd that I could use approved electronic devices, but I couldn't get online to chat or send an email. Luckily, the Wright brothers have been catching up with the cloud, and airlines like Virgin America have rolled out in-flight WiFi across their fleet.

To celebrate, we've teamed up with Virgin America to provide complimentary WiFi on all flights on June 24th, and we're co-hosting a timed online scavenger hunt called the Day in the Cloud Challenge. Whether you're going to be in the air or on the ground on that day, you're invited to participate in the challenge and can sign up at www.dayinthecloud.com.

If you use Gmail, there's a good chance you already have a leg up because some of the questions will involve your knowledge of Gmail (plus, you'll need a Google Account to play). To give you a little practice, we've just revealed some practice questions.

Curious how some people are getting ready for the challenge? Check out this video:

Tip: Slice and dice your mail with search operators

Thursday, June 04, 2009 5:11 PM

Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Marketing Manager

My friends email me all the time with ideas for improving Gmail. Just this weekend, my friend Dave said he wanted a way to select all of his messages with a certain label (like "urgent"). Two weeks ago, Adam came up with the idea of a button that would filter his inbox to only show unread items. Good ideas, but it turns out that doing stuff like this (and much more) is already possible using search operators.

For example, Dave would just need to search for "in:urgent" to get all items labeled "urgent," and Adam would just search for "is:unread in:inbox" to see all the unread messages in his inbox.

Here are a few other useful ways to filter your inbox:

• "to:me is:starred" shows all messages sent directly to you that are starred
  
• "is:chat from:heather" shows all chat conversations you had with Heather
  
• "is:starred -in:inbox" shows all your starred messages that aren't in your inbox (a good way to find anything important that you might have accidentally archived)
  
• "from:elliot filename:pdf" shows all messages from Elliot that have a pdf attachment

We've written about search operators here before, but lots of people find them hard to remember. That's why we built Search Autocomplete in Gmail Labs, designed to make searching in Gmail much easier. Instead of having to remember the exact syntax for advanced searches, you can just start typing, and search autocomplete will help you fill in the rest. If you find yourself doing some of the same searches over and over again, consider creating a permanent link to them using Quick Links in Labs.

Update (6/10): Revised the example about searching for a label to use "urgent" instead of "important."

New in Labs: Inbox preview

Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:37 PM

Posted by Peter Balsiger, Software Engineer

Whenever I open up my inbox at work, I'm never surprised to find several new messages waiting to be read. The same thing can't always be said about my personal Gmail account. Sometimes I end up checking my mail only to find nothing new there.

No big deal, really. But now imagine that you access Gmail on a super slow connection from a remote place in Ethopia where it might take minutes to completely load your inbox. The disappointment is larger when you find out that there is nothing new to read and you could have saved all that time.

To ease this pain a bit, we created a new feature in Gmail Labs called Inbox Preview. While Gmail is loading, a simple, static preview of your inbox with your ten most recent messages is displayed. Turn it on from the Labs tab under Settings, and if you're on a slow connection you'll know from the start if it's worth the wait.

New in Labs: Automatic message translation

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:47 PM

Posted by Darren Lewis, Software Engineer

Back in the early days of human existence, before language had fully developed, our caveman ancestors probably did a lot of grunting. Language, and thus life, were pretty simple: watch out for that saber-toothed tiger ("Blorg! AIYA!!!"); stop riding the wooly mammoth and help me pick some berries ("Argh. Zagle zorg!"); man, it's cold in this Ice Age ("Brrrr.").

Somewhere along the line, all those grunts diverged into thousands of distinct languages, and life became both richer and more complicated. And for the last few eons or so, we've struggled to communicate in a multilingual world. Which brings us to today. Since the heart and soul of Gmail is about helping people communicate, I'm proud to announce the integration of Google's automatic translation technology directly into Gmail.



Simply enable "Message Translation" from the Labs tab under Settings, and when you receive an email in a language other than your own, Gmail will help you translate it into a language you can understand. In one click.


If all parties are using Gmail, you can have entire conversations in multiple languages with each participant reading the messages in whatever language is most comfortable for them. It's not quite the universal translators we're so fond of from science fiction, but thanks to Google Translate, it's an exciting step in the right direction. I use this feature everyday to help me work with teammates around the globe (they think my Japanese is much better than it really is...shhhh!).

Whether you're reading a family update from inlaws on the other side of the world, working with a multinational team, or just trying to bring about world peace, don't worry, Gmail's got your back.

Till next time, adiós, またね, tchau, and 再見!

Import your mail and contacts from other accounts

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 3:06 PM

Posted by Chad Parry, Gmail Engineer

Gmail users can be a passionate bunch. Many of us have, at one time or another, encouraged or cajoled friends and family to join us @gmail.com. But switching email accounts can be pretty painful. It's like getting out of a relationship. You have so much baggage — years of emails and contacts, memories of past Christmases and Valentine's Days — so the easier your new email account can make it, the better. My wife flirted with the idea for two years before she finally took the plunge with Gmail. The reason she finally made the switch might also convince your friends that it's a good time to adopt a shiny new Gmail address.

Gmail now migrates email and contacts from other email providers, including Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, and many more. It's much easier to make the transition now that you can bring along all your old email and contacts. You can even have your messages forwarded from your old account for 30 days, giving you time to take Gmail for a test drive while you make up your mind.


This new feature is available in all newly-created Gmail accounts, and it is slowly being rolled out to all existing accounts. It'll take longer than the few hours or days that most Gmail features take to get out to everyone. You'll know it's on for your account when you see the Accounts and Import tab (formerly just called Accounts) under Settings. Sorry, businesses and schools using Google Apps won't see these new migration options.


Everyone can still use POP3 mail fetching and upload your contacts in a CSV file, but this new way is much simpler for basic imports. And we like it when you can access and move your data the way you want — it's been easy to auto-forward all your Gmail messages to any other service, and now it's a little easier to go the other direction too.

Tasks, now in Calendar too

10:59 AM

Posted by Garry Boyer, Software Engineer

Ever since we launched Google Calendar, people in our forum have been pretty vocal about a missing piece -- an integrated task list. "To-do would be tooo-rific," "I really, really, really need to use a to-do list," and my favorite: "I'll join your team to help you get it done!" The rumble turned into a roar a few months ago when we launched Tasks in Gmail Labs. Now we've integrated Tasks into Google Calendar as well.


To get started, open Calendar and click on the "Tasks" link on the left hand side. You'll see the familiar task list you're used to using in Gmail, with some Calendar-specific additions:

• Tasks that have due dates will automatically appear on your calendar. To create a task with a due date in Calendar, click on an empty space in month view or the all-day section of week view, and be sure select the "Task" option.



• To attach a due date to an existing task, click the right-arrow from within the task list, and then click on the calendar icon.
• You can modify a task's due date by dragging it to a different date, just as you would with a regular calendar event.
• To mark a task completed from within Calendar, just click on the task's checkbox. (Isn't that satisfying, overachievers?)
• To keep track of due dates before they arrive, there's a nifty new "Sort by due date" feature available in the Actions menu at the bottom of your task list. While sorting by due date, you can reschedule a task by clicking on it in your list, then pressing control and the up or down arrow key.

While working to help bring this feature to you, I used it to keep track of my own tasks. Now I can finally check off the last one in that list: "write blog post." Phew.