Inboxes
can be stressful places. Ahead of Google's launch of its new Gmail, these are
the ways you can master your inbox with extensions
Google’s updates for Gmail are due to be
released soon, and for some users, the
wait may still be too long. However there are some ways in which you can get
large parts of the new Gmail experience
right now, accessible with your average Google account.
And if
you don't want to update, there are still a host of ways to improve your
current Gmail setup. Read our suggestions below for how to make your Google
email experience better.
Try out the new Gmail
If
your account has been blessed by Google with the “Try the new Gmail” button,
than the obvious thing to do is make the switch. You can check out the spruced
up, but still familiar, user interface, and also some of the additional
functions. Obvious ones are placed onto the messages themselves, such as
snoozing an email until a later time, or viewing attachments without going into
the email itself, which accompany your standard choices for deleting and
marking as unread.
The
side panel now contains your Calendar, Keep and Tasks pages, so you don’t have
to navigate away from the inbox to use these features, but instead slide over a
separate part of the screen when you require it. Likewise, the other sidebar
containing the various folders of your email account is usually minimized to
just icons, a far smarter use of the screen space.
Google Labs and Extensions
Returning
to Gmail, there are some additional features to be unlocked in either the classic
or refreshed version. Under the Settings menu, there will either be an option
for Google Labs, or Advanced Options. Selecting this will give access to some
more unique options.
Canned Responses: One of the options you'll want to activate for your DIY
new Gmail is the ability to quickly reply to messages with stock replies. Type
out a message you may frequently have to send and then come back to it when you
quickly want to send the same message multiple times.
Preview Pane: New Gmail still takes you to a separate screen to read
messages, unlike Inbox. To redress this, turn on this Lab option to add a
reading area, much like the one in Outlook Mail, which some users will find a
far more sensible and convenient way of going through your incoming mail.
Gmail offline: There are always going to be some times where you don't
have any connectivity. The offline Gmail tool does exactly what you would
expect: read, write and send messages when you're out of touch. When you log
back in, all your activity will be pushed through Google's system.
Unread messages: If you use Gmail on the web, you probably have it open
amongst a ton of other tabs. This extensions simply changes the favicon in your
tabs. Instead of showing just the Gmail logo, the extension displays how many
new emails you have.
Gmail snooze: This extension was first created in 2015 and allows you
to snooze messages using Google's labels. It's an inelegant but practical
solution. The extensions makes labels – such as snooze for one hour – that
bring messages back to the top of your inbox.
MeisterTask: A small selection of add-ons are available for Gmail,
which behave a little like Chrome extensions. The one
we are interested in is MeisterTask, which turns your emails into the same
task-style interface offered by new Gmail and Inbox.
Inbox
There
is another Google email option all together. Google’s experimental alternative
to Gmail, Inbox, can be activated
with your existing account in just a few clicks, and allows you to use some of
the same features that the switch button allows, and also some you can’t access
otherwise.
One of
the most noticeable is reading emails in a pop-out that’s in line with your
messages, allowing faster navigation between them. You also get an extra
feature in the form of ‘Mark as Done’. There isn’t Google Task integration, but
you can still set its own reminders to yourself, or the whole inbox can act as
a to-do list, between setting emails as ‘Done’ or snoozing them, you can easily
figure out what needs attending to in your schedule (once you have created the
perfect email client of course).
Inbox
also groups similar messages together based on automatic and user specified
options. For example, it collects promotional messages from online shops, and
also messages from social networks, much as the current Gmail client does.
Inbox improves on this by giving automatic bundles for trips, receipts and
financial related messages. You can make your own bundles too with some simple
filtering settings.
Inbox
has an ‘assists’ function, that operates much like the AI system coming to
Gmail, reminding you to reply to important messages, or unsubscribe from
newsletters and other irritating communications you never open.
What you can’t get
Sadly,
there are no equivalents in anything we have looked at already to the new
“confidential mode”, so if you want to be able to make your emails
self-destruct after reading, you are going to have to wait.
While
it is a frustratingly uncertain wait before we can get our hands on all the
features of the updated Gmail, there is much you can do right now to make your
Google email experience more productive and better to use with a few minutes of
tinkering in options menus.
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