6 Gmail Tips

Are you a power Gmail user? If not, these 6 little known, yet useful Gmail tips can get you on the road to being a power Gmail user today!

1. Import your contacts from Outlook, Thunderbird or Yahoo! Mail to Gmail. Don’t spend your entire weekend trying to copy your contacts over from another program or service! Just export your contacts as a .csv file and upload to Gmail. You can upload up to 3,000 contacts at a time. Here’s a detailed how-to on importing contacts using this method.

2. Use the vacation responder to automatically send messages to contacts. You do not have to be on vacation in order to use the vacation responder. If I am facing a deadline and too busy to talk, I will set up my vacation responder to let people know that I appreciate their email and I will get back to them within a certain timeframe. This sets the expectation for them that I am not ignoring them and I will get back to them soon. My coworkers, family and friends appreciate it. You could also use the vacation responder to send “update” messages while you are away on vacation change the message and let people know how much fun you are having!

3. Save time when sending messages to groups by creating groups in your contacts list. Stop typing in the first few letters of the name or email address of 20 different people that you send those neat and crazy forwards to every day! Just create a group called “Forwards” and add them to the group. Now, you can just type “Forwards” and Gmail will do the rest. Check out the details for specific instructions on how to create groups within Gmail contacts.

4. Mute conversations that are either out of hand or you aren’t interested in. My family and friends “group email” each other all day, every day. Sometimes, the topic is nothing I want to talk about or have an interest in, so pressing “m” on my keyboard allows me to mute the conversation. All subsequent emails are automatically archived, and search-able by searching for “is:muted”. Filters still apply and you can unmute a conversation if you want to join in later.

5. Update your Web Clips to show your favorite RSS feeds and news clips right above your Gmail inbox. Gmail has many options available under the Settings menu, but you can add your own urls, too. The clips are shown randomly, and they are also clickable, so you can visit a blog directly from your email inbox or read up on some interesting news without typing in the URL everytime.

6.Create filters with multiple actions, to save time and keep your inbox clear. You have several options available to you, so use them! Coupled with the label system, you can create all types of filters that will make it easier to manage your incoming and existing mail. And you can also modify Gmail filters if you find it necessary.