Official Gmail Blog
News, tips and tricks from Google's Gmail team and friends.
Tip: Edit contacts right from your chat list
April 30, 2008
Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager
When I add a new friend to Gmail chat, sometimes my friend's email address is added as their contact name, such as hikingfan@gmail.com. I personally like to have the name of all my chat friends in my chat list so I don't get too confused as to who's who. To change this, I used to go into contacts, select the contact profile, add the name of my friend, and then save it.
But now with the new version of Gmail (launched for Firefox 2 and IE7) you can make edits to Gmail contacts directly from the chat list. I find it to be a great time saver. All you have to do is hover your mouse over one of your contacts to prompt a pop-up with contact details. If you just click on the contact name, it will automatically become an editable field. Simply type in the desired name and hit "enter." Your changes will save the name in your chat list as well as in your contacts.
Calendar Sync updated
April 22, 2008
Posted by Shirin Oskooi, Product Manager
Thanks for all the feedback you have sent us about Google Calendar Sync. We're rolling out an update that should make it a lot more useful.
Previously, your Google Calendar email address needed to be the organizer or an attendee of your Microsoft Outlook events for the Outlook events to sync to your Google Calendar. Now, when you choose to do a 2-way sync or a 1-way sync from Outlook calendar to Google Calendar, all of your Outlook events will be synced to your Google Calendar.
If you haven't been auto-updated to Google Calendar Sync 0.9.3.2 and you don't want to wait for the update, you can download it
here
.
9 reasons to archive
April 18, 2008
Posted by Kathryn McGarr, Online Operations Associate
We hear reports that many users don't archive their email. If you don't regularly click on the "archive" button or never even thought about it, here are some reasons you might want to get in the habit.
Archiving
just means moving mail out of your inbox and storing it for safekeeping. Your messages will be waiting for you when you click
All Mail
or search for them.
9. Phone numbers and addresses
You never know when you'll need a phone number someone emailed you or an address that was in a signature.
8. Procrastination
Sometimes you want to get a message out of your inbox, but you don't want to deal with organization, and you don't want to trash it.
7. Posterity
Just because you’re not famous now doesn’t mean that in forty years (or fifteen minutes) you won’t want to write your memoir.
6. Winning arguments
“But on May 5, 2005 at 8:43pm EDT you said….”
5. Mailing lists
Do you really need to know what Clintobamccain is doing every day? Auto-archive* their messages until you want to donate again.
4. Birthdays
Search for “grandma birthday” and voila, find the message you sent her last April. Aren't you glad you archived instead of deleted?
3. That
guy
Remember that guy you thought you’d
never
need to get in touch with
ever
again?
2. Because you can
May as well use the free storage space. Plus, clean inbox = clean mind.
1. Fate-tempting is bad. You just never know
Thirty-one days after you send that message to the Trash and it gets permanently deleted, you're going to need it. Don't tempt the fates.
*To auto-archive, create a
filter
with the action "
Skip the Inbox (Archive it)
."
We're hiring
April 8, 2008
Posted by Keith Coleman, Product Manager
Despite our best efforts, Gmail doesn't yet build itself. So we're looking for good people to keep making it better and better. It's fun and rewarding to work on a product that you, your friends, other people you know (and tens of millions of people someone else knows) use all the time. And if that's something you want to do, now you can learn more about what goes on behind the scenes and apply on
our new hiring page
.
It's hard to do on a static web page, but we wanted to give you a sense of what it's like to work on the team. Gmail was one of Google's first experimental forays outside of search, so boundary-pushing is part of our nature. We've developed new storage systems (Google never stored large amounts of user data before), new anti-spam systems (using machine learning technologies developed for search), and a new fast, modular, reusable Javascript architecture (Google never ran an AJAX app of this scale before). We try to push product boundaries, too, with lots of storage, integrated chat, and free IMAP -- stuff that just makes things better for users, even if it means an untraditional approach to business. And one of the best parts is that when you go out, people you actually know say, "Hey, I used [that thing you built]. It's cool." (And then they ask you why Gmail doesn't have folders.)
Much more is in the works, and we're looking for help, so check out
our jobs page
and send in your resume.
Giving group chat a go
April 7, 2008
Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager
A friend of mine recently told me that she used group chat in Gmail for the first time the other day. She was talking to two coworkers about a new project and essentially serving as a go-between. Her solution: make it one conversation.
When she told me about this, I couldn't believe this was the first time she used group chat, which we
launched
in November. I've used group chat a ton, and find it especially useful for coordinating social plans with friends. I try not to do as much back-and-forth emailing to work out plans anymore. I just invite my friends to a group chat and iron out details -- it's much faster.
So in case you haven't seen it yet, you can add a person to any Gmail chat by clicking "Options" in the chat window and then "Group chat." Then start typing the person's name or email, and you'll get contacts auto-complete just like when you compose messages.
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