GMail Tricks You Probably Haven’t Tried - Comments Page 1

I've been a fan of GMail for many years. One benefit I really make use of is the option to simultaneously tag messages with any number of 'folder' names (which one can establish). You can also establish sub-folders under any folder.

I don't think you will find a better email system for straining out SPAM. I hope GMail never goes away.

I've used several e-mail clients since the mid-1980s and do appreciate the security of Gmail. However, Outlook Express and then Windows Live Mail spoiled me with their very easy-to-use approaches. Gmail changes things around too much to suit me and seemingly "hides" useful tools--for instance their spell checker--had to "dig" to find it this morning. Gmail does have many wonderful features. New "learning curves" are harder as one advances in age. You'll understand in 20 years....

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hi Butch. There's no need to dig for the spell checker. If you spell a word incorrectly, it will be underlined in red. Right-click on the word, and you'll get a popup with suggested corrections.

I just can't use a Google project knowing they use the information they find for their abusive and aggressive marketing. Thanks, but no thanks. I know the goal of Google is to monitor every human being every minute of the day in order to sell their information to marketers. I suppose it is inevitable they will succeed since so many buy into the mythos, but I'll do a big pass as long as I can.

I couldn't agree more with both Butch and Dianne. Realizing that "change is inevitable," and particularly with sodtware, it is quite annoying to constantly relearn a program that is constantly changing generally without notice and seemingly ALWAYS without unstruction! To suffer that frustration at the hands of the worlds premiere data aggregator is oftentimes infurating!

I used Gmail at one time, after having an account for several years but never using it. One day I had a brainfart and lost my password. I went through the steps Gmail has for resetting my password but they asked questions I had no clue how to answer, like when I opened my account. And there was no way to contact Gmail to either reset my password or delete my account. As far as I know, after about 4 years post-brainfart it's still an active account, and I have no access to it. I've since moved to a webmail account with my ISP, and it serves me well. And best of all, if I have a problem the solution is just a phone-call away.

I too have loved gmail for many years. But when Yahoo! and AOL changed their DMARC settings, it caused problems with consolidation of accounts. E.g., I have used a yahoo account for two decades to sign up for email lists, groups, etc. If I get an email from those lists, it automatically forwards to my gmail. If I then try to forward that email from within gmail, I must change the from to my gmail or yahoo and aol will deny it. However, if I respond to the email so the entire group can see it, it must stay as the yahoo account or the list server will deny it (since it wouldn't recognize my gmail as a member). It's a mess. I know the answer is to change all my lists and groups to a gmail account, but that will take time. And some of my lists are no longer open to new members.

I have often used the janedoe+kohls@gmail.com feature. BUT, I find more and more web sites consider this format to be an invalid email address and I must resort to another type of anonymous or throwaway address.

Just a test to see if the A+b@gmail feature works on the AskBob site

Simply put, I don't trust Google. I certainly do not want them to data-mine my e-mails for info to sell to advertisers, nor do I want advertisers to pester me more than they already do. So I have a Google e-mail account that I use for a few very specific purposes, but for every day stuff I am more comfortable with AOL.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you'd rather have AOL mining your data, that's fine. :-)

We went online in 1999 and I acquired my hotmail account. It is tied to everything I do. I have a gmail account because I have an Android phone but almost never look at it. It sounds interesting but I am comfortable with hotmail and, at age 76, comfortable is good. Hotmail has its irritations though. It recently moved Ask Bob to junk mail even though it has always been in my inbox. Sigh. The world is a messy place.

I am not so enchanted by gmail when they deny bulk email. I administer two listservs which do not spam anyone, and which have no one added without their consent. Regardless, all of a sudden, I have to learn about DMARC and a bunch of other useless stuff, and I resent being called a spammer when I get enough spam to choke a camel and on a daily basis.

I only use my Gmail account to post to usenet when my ISP goes offline. And I only use Chrome to visit web sites that won't work without it.

I do not trust Google period!

I like that you can change up your email address -the name portion-and still get the email. I must try it. I have Gmail but my working horse email is yahoo. It was the first email I had where KI was not log to a computer or a Internet Service Provider (ISP). I could travel anywhere in the world an access my email through yahoo. That was in the late 80's to early 90's. However nearly all email services are doing that now. So since I am establish in my yahoo I will stick to it. However if it is a special occasion, I am going to use my Gmail account much more.

Wow.Thanks for this info. I am a long-time gmail user who, until today, did not know some of these features existed.

I get that people don't trust Google, I don't either. But who do you trust? The only one in the computing world I trust is Bob Rankin. So I'm going to be using Gmail more.

@Chuck +1

I also like the Gmail Labs "Canned Responses" feature that lets you create fixed messages that you can send over and over with a couple of clicks. For example, I use it to send standard replies to people after they pay for an eBay item. "thank you for your payment. I will ship this out within the next two business days.", I also have one with my standard address and a link to the Google Maps location.

I have a gmail account but rarely use it because of several of the above mentioned annoyances. I don't find it intuitive or easy to use. Some features are hard to find or are difficult to use. I have several other email accounts that I find more user friendly.

Hi Bob,
You are highly respected with your audience, as you deserve to be.
In the case of trusting your 25GB of stored messages in the brain-trust of google is literally and figuratively same as "putting all your eggs in one basket". Yet, your article puts little concern while fully endorsing a product.
It is NOT like there are no other alternatives to doing the Borg-thing!
A simple DuckDuckGo search for ‘gmail alternatives’ will lead to many other OpenSource ‘webmail clients’. Some of these offerings take user security and privacy a bit more seriously than google trolling for targetable ads in every bit of data that is routed through its servers.
Sure, I got my gmail account in early "invite-only" days, where "Don't be evil" was the formal corporate motto. Yet, I value my security and privacy enough to NOT use the dominant player in the market for all my data.
If security/privacy mean nil to all users, then the need for inventing the envelop would have been unnecessary! No?
[Personally though, I sure would like to know the specific reasons as to why you would not be running your own mail-server(s) on godaddy.com.]

EDITOR'S NOTE:: A few points... I don't rely solely on Google to keep my email archive. Backups, remember? :-)
You mention security -- has there ever been a GMail security breach? With 2-factor authentication turned on, it doesn't even matter if a hacker somehow got your password. And running my own mail server? Among other things, I'd have to re-invent Google's amazing spam filter, and then I'd be back to 1995, accessing my mail with a desktop client.

I love Gmail (my wife hates it), but I am not tied to it. I have several domain names I've purchased, and email to addresses at those domain names is automatically email-forwarded to my Gmail account. When I send emails from my Gmail account I use one of the alternate "FROM" addresses to match the domain name it's related to. And almost every night I use the MailStore Home program to archive the emails in my Gmail account onto my computer's hard disk. All of this means that I could switch to some other service instead of Gmail if I ever had to, and I wouldn't lose my email history nor have to notify anyone about changing my email address(s).

I don't understand why I cannot change the sequenc e in a series of emails with the same person. The new stuff is always way down there, I like to have it on the top . Any suggestions ?