1) The key board shortcuts
Well, this is for those who love the keyboard and hate taking their hands off it. For these shortcuts to work, you need to activate them first. The process is as follows
- Go to settings on your gmail window
- Look for keyboard shortcuts in the Genaral tab
- Check the keyboard shortcuts on to turn on the shortcut keys
- Click save changes
| Shortcut Key |
Definition |
Action |
| c |
Compose |
Allows you to compose a new message. <Shift> + c allows you to compose a message in a new window. |
| / |
Search |
Puts your cursor in the search box. |
| k |
Move to newer conversation |
Opens or moves your cursor to a more recent conversation. You can hit <Enter> to expand a conversation. |
| j |
Move to older conversation |
Opens or moves your cursor to the next oldest conversation. You can hit <Enter> to expand a conversation. |
| n |
Next message |
Moves your cursor to the next message. You can hit <Enter> to expand or collapse a message. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’) |
| p |
Previous message |
Moves your cursor to the previous message. You can hit <Enter> to expand or collapse a message. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’) |
| o or <Enter> |
Open |
Opens your conversation. Also expands or collapses a message if you are in ‘Conversation View.’ |
| u |
Return to conversation list |
Refreshes your page and returns you to the inbox, or list of conversations. |
| e |
Archive |
Archive your conversation from any view. |
| m |
Mute |
Archives the conversation, and all future messages skip the Inbox unless sent or cc’d directly to you. Learn more. |
| x |
Select conversation |
Automatically checks and selects a conversation so that you can archive, apply a label, or choose an action from the drop-down menu to apply to that conversation. |
| s |
Star a message or conversation |
Adds or removes a star to a message or conversation. Stars allow you to give a message or conversation a special status. |
| ! |
Report spam |
Marks a message as spam and removes it from your conversation list. |
| r |
Reply |
Replies to the message sender. <Shift> + r allows you to reply to a message in a new window. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’) |
| a |
Reply all |
Replies to all message recipients. <Shift> +a allows you to reply to all message recipients in a new window. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’) |
| f |
Forward |
Forwards a message. <Shift> + f allows you to forward a message in a new window. (Only applicable in ‘Conversation View.’) |
| <Esc> |
Escape from input field |
Removes the cursor from your current input field. |
| <Ctrl> + s |
Save draft |
Saves the current text as a draft when composing a message. Hold the <Ctrl> key while pressing s and make sure your cursor is in one of the text fields — either the composition pane, or any of the To, CC, BCC, or Subject fields — when using this shortcut. |
| # |
Delete |
Moves the conversation to Trash. |
| <Shift> + i |
Mark as read |
Marks your message as ‘read’ and skip to the next message. |
| <Shift> + u |
Mark as unread |
Marks your message as ‘unread’ so you can go back to it later. |
| [ |
Archive and previous |
Archives your conversation and moves to the previous one. |
| ] |
Archive and next |
Archives your conversation and moves to the next one. |
| z |
Undo |
Undoes your previous action, if possible (works for actions with an ‘undo’ link). |
| <Shift> + n |
Update current conversation |
Updates your current conversation when there are new messages. |
| q |
Move cursor to chat search |
Moves your cursor directly to the chat search box. |
| y |
Remove from Current View* |
Automatically removes the message or conversation from your current view.
- From ‘Inbox,’ ‘y’ means Archive
- From ‘Starred,’ ‘y’ means Unstar
- From ‘Trash,’ ‘y’ means Move to inbox
- From any label, ‘y’ means Remove the label
* ‘y’ has no effect if you’re in ‘Spam,’ ‘Sent,’ or ‘All Mail.’ |
| . |
Show more actions |
Displays the ‘More Actions’ drop-down menu. |
| ? |
Show keyboard shortcuts help |
Displays the keyboard shortcuts help menu within any page you’re on. |
The combination keys
| Shortcut Key |
Definition |
Action |
| <tab> then <Enter> |
Send message |
After composing your message, use this combination to send it automatically. (Supported in Internet Explorer and Firefox, on Windows.) |
| y then o |
Archive and next |
Archives your conversation and moves to the next one. |
| g then a |
Go to ‘All Mail’ |
Takes you to ‘All Mail,’ the storage site for all mail you’ve ever sent or received (and have not deleted). |
| g then s |
Go to ‘Starred’ |
Takes you to all conversations you have starred. |
| g then c |
Go to ‘Contacts’ |
Takes you to your Contacts list. |
| g then d |
Go to ‘Drafts’ |
Takes you to all drafts you have saved. |
| g then i |
Go to ‘Inbox’ |
Returns you to the inbox. |
| g then t |
Go to ‘Sent Mail’ |
Takes you to all mail you’ve sent. |
| * then a |
Select all |
Selects all mail. |
| * then n |
Select none |
Deselects all mail. |
| * then r |
Select read |
Selects all mail you’ve read. |
| * then u |
Select unread |
Selects all unread mail. |
| * then s |
Select starred |
Selects all starred mail. |
| * then t |
Select unstarred |
Selects all unstarred mail. |
I am pretty sure that not all might be useful to one person. It depends on your needs and how much you love the keyboard 
2) Access gmail with an email client
To enable POP access to your Gmail account with any email client follow these steps
- Choose Settings from the top Gmail navigation bar.
- Select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
- Make sure either Enable POP for all mail or Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on is selected.
- Choose Enable POP for all mail if you want to download mail previously received at your Gmail account. Otherwise, select Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on.
- Select the action you want applied to mail after you have downloaded it to your email client under When messages are accessed with POP.
- Click Save
Set Up Your Email Client for Gmail POP Access
Now set up a new account in your email client:
- Eudora
- iPhone mail
- Mac OS X mail
- Mozilla Thunderbird 2.x
- Mozilla Thunderbird 1.x
- Outlook 2007
- Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2003
- Outlook express
- Pegasus mail
- Windows mail
- Windows live mail
If your email program is not listed above, use these settings:
- POP server: pop.gmail.com.
- Port: 995.
- Require SSL: Yes.
- User name: your Gmail email address. Make sure your user name includes both your Gmail account name and “@gmail.com”. If your Gmail account name is “my.account”, for example, type “my.account@gmail.com” as the user name.
- Password: your Gmail password.
- SMTP server: smtp.gmail.com.
- Port: 465.
- Require SSL/STARTTLS: Yes.
- Require SMTP authentication: Yes.
- User name: your Gmail email address.
- Password: your Gmail password.
That is all that needs to be done. That will set up your email client to receive mails from gmail.
3) Inserting pictures into your mail directly and
not as attachment
Isnt it nice if you were able to include pictures inside your mail and write text around it? It makes your mail more appealing and nice right? This is how you can do it gmail
Requirements:
- The image must be on a web server. That means, you cant put an image that is on your hard drive. Upload that image somewhere and then you can include it. You can try free uploading site like photoshare, imageshack, photobucket or any other such sites.
- You must use the >>Rich formatting mode in your gmail while composing your mail. The option will be just above your editing area
- You must use Mozilla Firefox for this. It didnt work for me in chrome.
Next, open the image that you want to iclude in your mail till you see only that image. That is, right click on it and choose view image. This will display only the image and nothing else.
- Press ctrl+A to select all
- Press ctrl+C to copy that image.
- Now, go to the place where you want the picture to be present and press ctrl+V
- If you use an image uploaded to a free image hosting service:
- Click on the image.
- Now click the Link button in the rich-text formatting toolbar.
- Copy and paste the image’s page address at the free image hosting service under To what URL should this link go?. If you uploaded the image to photobucket, say, you could link to “http://media.photobucket.com/image/myimage.jpg”.
- Click OK.
Now send the mail with your personal touch to it 
4) Add Bcc Recipients in Gmail
Bcc stands for Blind carbon copy. All the recipients that you have specified here will get a copy of the mail but they will not get all the recipients in header. Meaning, they will not now that the copy of that mail has been sent to others also
To add Bcc recipients to messages in Gmail:
- Select Compose from the left Gmail navigation bar.
- Type the primary recipient in the To: line.
To hide the recepients of all the addresses, you can also leave the To: field blank or enter your own Gmail address.
- Click Add Bcc.
- Enter all the recipients’ email addresses in the Bcc: field.
- Continue editing your message and eventually click Send.
5) Export Your Gmail Contacts
You have accumulated your contacts from a long time. You need them at all costs and you want to save it from losing it due to any unfortunate events. Or you just wants to export these to other email accounts. Just go through these steps to do that
- Select Contacts from the left Gmail navigation bar.
- Now click Export at the upper right corner or in the contacts’ toolbar (using Gmail’s older version).
- For a maximum of compatibility, select Outlook CSV. Both Outlook CSV and Gmail CSV export all data. The Gmail format uses Unicode to preserve international characters under all circumstances, but some email programs including Outlook do not support that. Outlook CSV converts names to your default character encoding.
- Click Export or Export Contacts.
- Download the “gmail-to-outlook.csv” or “gmail.csv” file to your Desktop.
6) Gmail notifier – get a sound when new mail
arrives
You like to get notified by an alarm when you receive a new mail? Well, you can do that by using the application Gmail notifier application.
- Install the Gmail notifier from the link given above
- Select Control Panel from the Windows Start menu.
- Choose Sounds and Audio Devices. If you can’t see this item, click Switch to Classic View in the left pane.
- Go to the Sounds tab.
- Select the desired sound for New Mail Notification. To disable audio notification, choose (none).
- Click OK.
7) Using labels to the emails
One of the coolest thing about gmail is the labels. Dont get disheartened that gmail does not has good folder system. You can always use labels to categorize the mails. What more, one mail can have different labels and that will give you more control over organizing the mails.
To create a label in Gmail
- Select Settings from the top Gmail navigation bar.
- Go to Labels.
- Type the desired name for the label under Create a new label
- Click Create.
Voila. You have created your label. Now you can use this label and apply it to the mails. Now, to apply the labels, follow these steps
- Check the message in the message list or open it.
- Click the More Actions drop-down menu.
- Select the desired label under Apply Label.
- To add one more labels, repeat the above steps
To remove labels
- Check the messages whose labels must be removed
- Click the More Actions drop-down menu.
- Select the desired label under Remove Label.
- Repeat the steps to remove other labels
Now, you can customize these labels as you wish also. Yes, gmail is the best
Change the Label’s Color
To assign a text and background color combination to a Gmail label:
- Make sure the Labels box is open in Gmail left column. You can expand it by clicking Labels or the rightward-pointing arrow next to it.
- Click the color box next to the desired label.
- Pick a text and background color combination. To make a label appear dark gray on light gray, click Remove color. See below for adding your own color combinations.
To add your own color combinations for the labels
- Follow the Settings link.
- Go to Labs.
- Make sure Enable is selected for Custom Label Colors.
- When picking a label’s color, select Add custom colors.
- Select the desired colors for text and background.
- Click Apply.
Done. You are now able to see your work in action. It feels good!
Organizing your contacts into different groups
The need to do it is understood. You dont send some mails to some kind of people. You want to send a report to your team members. Or, you want to have a group of your friends whom you forward mails quite often.
To create a group for list mailing from existing contacts in Gmail
- Select Contacts from the left side navigation bar in Gmail.
- Check all the contacts you want to add to the new list.
- Click the Add to group … drop-down menu.
- Select New group … from the menu. To add the selected contacts to an existing group, select it instead.
- Type the name by which you want the new address book group to go.
- Click OK.
To create an empty group
- Select Contacts from the left navigation bar.
- Go to the Groups tab.
- Click Create Group.
- Type the desired name of the group under Group name.
- Enter an initial set of members under Add contacts. You can add contacts already in your Gmail address book but type fresh email addresses, too. The latter will be added to your regular address book as well.
Now you want to add new members to a group, proceed as above. To remove or edit members of a mailing list follow these steps
- Select Contacts from the left navigation bar.
- Go to the Groups tab.
- Click the name of the group you want to edit.
- Check members and choose Remove from group to delete them from the group.
- Click on individual contacts to edit their details.
Now, you want to use this group and send the mail to everyone at once. Here is how you go about doing it
- Create a new message.
- Type your email address in the To: field. You can also try leaving this field blank. Gmail will send your message, but some mail servers may refuse to deliver it due to its non-conforming incompleteness.
- Click Add Bcc.
- Type the name of the desired group in the Bcc: field. Gmail will complete the name and append “(group)” to indicate a list. The list is automatically expanded, so you’ll see the individual group members in the Bcc: field and can add or remove individual addresses.
- Compose the message and click Send.
Isnt it easy? There are tons of such stuff gmail can do. I will try to update this as soon as possible
