A Handful Of Settings You Should Use In Gmail

Gmail is the most used email service in the world, with well over 1.8 billion users. To keep all these users happy, Gmail is full of wonderful settings that make managing your emails super easy and efficient. 

Here are a handful of settings our clients love to make working in Gmail enjoyable.

Offline Mode

Many people think or have been told incorrectly that you can't use Gmail if you're offline. Besides travelling, it is rare now not to have internet access; it is easy to tether from your mobile. Nonetheless, Gmail has an offline mode that you can enable in settings that will let you access your email for those rare times you're not online. 

Priority Inbox

There are a handful of different inbox layouts you can have in Gmail. You can make Gmail look like old-fashioned Outlook if that makes you happy. But, for true happiness and a realistic chance of hitting inbox zero, you should flick on Priority Inbox. This mode uses AI to make sure emails that are important to you appear at the top of your inbox while newsletters and other stuff get deprioritised. Google explains it best with this video.

Send and Archive

There are two options for sending an email in Gmail. "Send" and "Send And Archive" and pros use the second option. When you reply to an email in Gmails, you'll see the option "Send and Archive." If you click this, the email you have responded to disappears from your inbox, helping to clean out your inbox so only fresh emails are located there, and when the person replies to your email, the email will reappear in your inbox. Here is how you set up “Send and Archive”.

Conversational View

Some may say this is a controversial setting; many give up before giving the setting a chance. But those who turn on Conversational View are far more efficient at managing their emails. Like a WhatsApp conversation, the oldest message is at the top, with the newest at the bottom. Conversational View does this for email: it bundles a subject together with the most senior (or first) email sent at the top and the most recent at the bottom. So rather than searching for individually sent and received emails, the whole conversation is bundled together in a straightforward view.

Search

What is Google famous for? It's search. Well, Gmail has that fantastic search built-in. A leftover from legacy email clients such as Outlook is that you had to spend time organising emails into folders because Outlook's built-in search was and still is naff, and folders are the only way to find old emails. Old habits die hard, and there is a tendency for Gmail users to organise emails into labels; while pretty, it isn't really needed as Gmail search will find what you need as quickly as Google Search finds a website for you. There is also a whole bunch of search commands you can use to narrow down the email you’re locating.

Even more tips and tricks

When your business partners with Kimbley IT for your IT Support, you'll have unlimited access to more fantastic tricks and tips like these. Have a look at what you can get, then book a video call!