(Another Reason) Why Gmail Is Awesome
I’ve used Gmail as my primary email account for several years now and am a big fan of it.
When I first started using it, I was impressed by the search feature, which completely blew Yahoo!’s out of the water (Yahoo! has since improved, but Gmail had it first). You could type any word in the search bar and it would scan all of your emails for that word.
Also cool is the way that Gmail portrays a string of emails between a group of people as a collapsible conversation thread. It’s easy to see what everyone has said without going back and opening other messages.
But today, in what has been a frustrating and flummoxing morning, I came across my favorite Gmail feature. I was trying to send a PDF of a term paper to a professor, but, since I was somewhat flustered, forgot to actually attach the PDF. Fortunately, in the body of the email I had mentioned that I was attaching a file. Gmail noticed that I had used the word “attached” without actually attaching a file, and then asked if I had meant to do so.
Annoying and potentially embarrassing moment avoided=Gmail is awesome.
When I first started using it, I was impressed by the search feature, which completely blew Yahoo!’s out of the water (Yahoo! has since improved, but Gmail had it first). You could type any word in the search bar and it would scan all of your emails for that word.
Also cool is the way that Gmail portrays a string of emails between a group of people as a collapsible conversation thread. It’s easy to see what everyone has said without going back and opening other messages.
But today, in what has been a frustrating and flummoxing morning, I came across my favorite Gmail feature. I was trying to send a PDF of a term paper to a professor, but, since I was somewhat flustered, forgot to actually attach the PDF. Fortunately, in the body of the email I had mentioned that I was attaching a file. Gmail noticed that I had used the word “attached” without actually attaching a file, and then asked if I had meant to do so.
Annoying and potentially embarrassing moment avoided=Gmail is awesome.
7 comments:
that IS cool...I think I need gmail too.
MrsD,
You should look into it. Another thing I forgot to mention is that the storage space is practically unlimited.
Since it's free you have nothing to lose…
I cannot count how many times that feature would have already proved its worth to me. Maybe I should sign up.
Alex,
You really should; what do you have to lose?
Granted, getting a new email address and starting from scratch is pretty annoying anytime you do it, but you could just do a gradual migration (just tell new contacts your new address, check both for a while, and then eventually you'll hardly need the old one at all).
One additional feature which is neat is that it's seamlessly integrated with GoogleDocs, which means if anyone ever sends you a PDF, Word document or Excel spreadsheet, you can open them up in GoogleDocs directly without having to download them, open a new program, etc. This is especially helpful if you find yourself on a computer where you're not allowed to download files, or lacking in software and therefore unable to open said files.
If you're using Gmail in Safari and you want to attach a file, you can drag that file from its location on the the area of the email your are typing and it will allow you to simply attach the file by dropping it.
I too am a HUGE Gmail fan.
Also, Gmail will check your old email address for as long as you want. You can tell people your new address or not. I have my gmail account check a total of three other accounts. Also, from that one account, I can have Gmail send an email as if I were sending it from another account. Another way of saying that is I can send and receive from multiple accounts (email addresses) from one screen.
For example, my Gmail checks my Harding mail. When I want to email a professor, I like it to come from my Harding account. From my one Gmail account that I regularly use, that checks my Harding mail I can also send an email as if it were from my Harding account (the reply-to is my Harding email).
These Gmail people are pretty great.
The other day, I got an email requesting my presence at an event. It was not a calendar invitation, just a regular email. Somehow Gmail knew and asked if I wanted to add it to my calendar. That was pretty cool.
Clay,
I didn't know that, but that is another cool feature that I will be using from now on.
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