GMail Features

So by now, all you GoogleMail users may have noticed the new Themes feature, which allows you to customize the look of your GMail web front-end. These range from complex, weather dependent ones (like the "Tree" theme I am currently using) to bare-bone ones like the Terminal look (for all you uber-geeks out there). Depending on how much you like to fool around with your computer settings, you may have stumbled upon many of the other features Google has built into GMail. Furthermore, you may have seen some of the future features of GMail, which you can test in the Labs section. Here are some of my favorite features:

Forgotten Attachment Detector

Seriously, I believe that there is some universal law, that whenever you mention an attachment in a mail, you will forget to attach it. It seems I am not the only one who loves doing this: Recently an advertisement of a hotel chain made it through my spam filter, urging the recipient to take a look at the included broshure for special prices. Everything was fine, except that the broshure was not included. Five minutes later, another mail reached me from the same company, with an apology for forgetting to hit the attach button, and this time had the broshure included (I may add that the offers were not very convincing for someone on a student budget). Anyway, I recommend everyone who writes mails to install this GMail plugin, which detects text along the lines "ey dude, check out this awesome pic I attached!" and warns you if said picture is not actually attached. How do they do it? Google magic, as always.

Mail Goggles

So you just returned from the local tavern, and have had one too many to walk straight. Well, luckily shopping on Amazon and sending Email does not require the ability to walk or think straight. While Google may not help with the embarassing items you bought on Amazon, it can make sure you are sober enough to not send that hate-mail to your mother-in-law or love letter to your boss. How you ask? By asking you to solve some simple mathematical problems before sending off the mail. If you get these wrong, you'll be politely asked to try the next morning again.

Canned Responses

So if you're lazy (like me), you usually answer multiple-page emails with a single sentence, or even word ("no"). To make you seem more polite Google can help with some canned responses. Using this Lab feature, you can save common templates, and restore them to fill in the blanks for any reply.

Message Notifications

(Note: I cannot find this one in the Labs bar anymore, so it may have made it into the default features). Have you ever given a nice long smart-ass answer to somebody posting some question, only to find that once you replied someone else posted something much better (or something that discredits your answer)? Well, say goodbye to those embarrasing moments with message notifications, that will show you what other people have replied before you send your own reply. Then you can take the best parts of the other replies and make the other people look stupid. Who could ask for more?

Email Addict

And finally, a feature that should not help with emailing, but help STOP emailing. Email Addict lets you take a break from email and chatting by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat. Just enough time to get a nice cup of coffee.