From Gmail it is possible to chat with friends, organize and share calendars, edit word documents, and far more. The addition of Gmail Labs created an excellent way for Google to provide users access to extra functionality still in the development process. It gives users like myself the ability to personalize Gmail in such a way that it becomes more than an email client.

It is important to note that the list of add-ons for Gmail Labs is always changing – things can be added and removed without notice. I personally have been using Gmail Labs since it came out in 2008, and have never seen one of the features disappear, but Google reserves the right to do so if they decide.

With that said, what aspects of Gmail Labs are worth noting to the average user? When scanning a growing list of 50 or so Gmail extensions, what might most users find essential? I’ve taken some time to consider these questions and want to suggest four Gmail Labs extensions that I think you’ll love.

Note: To enable Gmail Labs, navigate to Settings > Labs within your Gmail. Simply select a feature from the list of labs by clicking enable and then save changes at the bottom of the page. If Labs ever malfunctions and prevents your mail from loading, use this link to disable Labs.

Navbar Drag and Drop

“Allows you to reorder the items in your navbar using drag and drop.”

Sounds relatively simple, right? This Gmail extension lets the user decide where those widget-looking boxes (like “chat” and “invite a friend”) on their sidebar in Gmail will go. To re-order a “widget” grab it by the bar at the top, and simply drag it somewhere else.

Face it, if you’ve just added a bunch of new Gmail Labs extensions you’re going to want some of them in different locations than where the all-knowing Gmail Labs placed them. It’s a fact of life. Embrace that desire with this useful extension.

Google Search

“Displays Google search results inside your mail window, letting you quickly find things and use them when you’re writing an email.”

This is another feature that most people tend to overlook. Once enabled, this extension appears as a small, unobtrusive Google Search box in the Gmail sidebar on the left. Searches in that box return results in a nice chatbox-style area at the bottom of the window.

When clicked on, results will open in a new window so that your email session is not disrupted. This may actually be the perfect extension for those of us that read emails which cause us to impulsively Google Search things.

Give this one a try—you won’t regret it.

Text Messaging in Chat (US phones only)

“Allows you to send and receive text messages (SMS) in Chat.”

Basically, this Gmail extension lets you text message other US cell phone users from your Gmail account in a chat-based style. To send a text message to a user, hover over their name in the Chat box, and under Video & More click Send SMS. From there it’s just a matter of inputting their number (which Gmail will remember for later use) and sending them a message. I’ve found a use for this on more than one occasion recently – it’s organized, handy, and free!

Gmail Beta icon

“Soothes the soul by putting the familiar beta sticker back on the Gmail logo”

If your Gmail inbox is anything like mine you’ve got features from Labs enabled, gadgets popping up all over the sidebar, and that strange feeling that something still isn’t right. Sometimes its helpful to have a reminder that if you’ve reached that point with your add-ons, your inbox is (whether you’d like to think so or not) mostly in a Beta state. That’s why Darren over at Google has created a Lab that changes the familiar Gmail logo back to the old one that many of us hardcore beta testers know and love.

As Gmail continues to evolve into more than just email for its users, Google continues to look for the public response to the changes they make. That’s why it is important to leave feedback – what do you want to see in the future of Gmail?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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How many times have we sent an email to the wrong guy? At least – once. How many times have we forgotten to include someone in the mail? Many times over! The end result may or may not be as bad as with handguns or as embarrassing as a tequila high, but email mistakes are unprofessional (and can be potentially a huge blow).

The good thing about Gmail is that the boffins in Google Labs have their empathy hat on. They know that foot-in-the-mouth disease is becoming quite common in the online world too, thanks to rapid tools like email and Twitter. That’s why Gmail has quite a few Google Labs email features inbuilt to prevent such errors.

We have brought up some of the features previously mentioned in a couple of Google Labs feature posts. Maybe, this one will help to put all of them on a common thread. Let’s start with two of the latest ones on the experimental block.

To access the Google Labs email features, click on the little green beaker icon at the top right.

1. Don’t Forget Bob

   

   Who’s Bob? It could be your friend or your boss. But actually in Gmail it’s the new name for the old ‘Add More Recipients’. It’s Google’s way of suggesting adding guys you might have missed while filling your address fields. Click on Enable and it might help you avoid a bit of heartburn from ignored friends while emailing important announcements.

2. Got the wrong Bob?

   

   Ignoring Bob is bad. What’s even worse is including the wrong Bob. Imagine sending a gossipy email to the wrong person…it will surely ignite the office grapevine. Unlike gossip, emails don’t give you a place to hide. The new feature in Gmail Labs prompts you if it thinks you’re about to e-mail the wrong person. This feature works for group mailing. Gmail looks at the groups you mail more often and alerts you if a new name gets added. If you think you didn’t make a mistake, just ignore it and move on.

3. Mail Googles

   

   Google’s cure for temporary blood rush to the head or for the dopey eyed. Enabling this feature forces you to do some basic math before sending out the mail. Gmail makes sure that you are in the right state of mind during the odd hours when email mistakes are more common.

   After enabling it, you can manually adjust days, times and difficulty level under Settings – Generals.

4. Forgotten Attachment Detector

   

   This reminder feature is for more professional email results rather than fatal goof-ups. No one will actually mind if you forget an attachment except the HR guy perhaps. The clever feature senses that you are sending a mail with attachment (say, you wrote: “I am attaching this doc file”) and alerts you if you forget to do so.

5. Authentication icon for verified senders

   

   Falling for a scam is the ultimate email goof-up. Did you hear about the one where the FBI head honcho nearly fell for an email phishing scam? He was banned by his wife from further online transactions. The Gmail authentication icon protects you from such a fate by adding a layer of security. It scans the email headers and places a key icon next to verified emails that are super-trustworthy. The trust is limited to eBay and PayPal for now but as the official Gmail blog says, more senders will be added soon.

6. Keep your email conversations updated

   

   This is supposed to work like this – if you are in the middle of reading a mail and someone sends in a response to it before you do, Gmail alerts you that a new message has arrived. Click Update conversation to see what you’ve missed. With this feature, you won’t fall out of the loop and can stay – updated. This is not strictly a Google Labs email feature but now a default feature for all incoming mails.

7. Undo Send

   

   You have committed all the cardinal sins mentioned so far. No worries, Google has a workaround for it too. With Undo Send, you can quickly stop the email from being dispatched. The only problem is that you have to realize your mistake fast and click on the undo button faster. Undo Send gives you just 5 or 10 seconds to see the error of your ways. Ignore it and the e-mail goes through. Click Undo and you are returned to the Compose window.

Most of these are experimental Google Lab email features. They may or may not stand the test of time and use. But while they are there, they can help us keep our follies at bay.

Which feature do you like the best? Which one do you hate? Tell us your reasons in the comments below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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The labs feature is a great way to push forth features which may be useful for a group of people, while others could do without it. Taking the labs philosophy further, Google Calendar now has a Labs feature as well.

As usual, you can access the Labs features via Settings (and then the Labs tab) and you would have to explicitly enable/disable the features according to your liking. Presently there are 6 features available inside Google Calendar Labs and I will elaborate each and every one of them after the jump.

• Background Image: Allows you to choose a background image for your calendar. Google Calendar doesn’t have themes like Gmail so this would be your best bet to customize the look of Google Calendar. After enabling it, you will see an option to choose a background image within your calendar settings





• Attach Google Docs: Lets you assign a document, spreadsheet or presentation from Google Docs to the event. Enabling this will add an entry “Add a Google Document” to the event details page. Clicking on it shows you a list of Google Documents you have in your account and lets you choose the ones you would like to associate with the current event.



• A World Clock: Apart from keeping track of time in different time zones, it also displays your event’s start time in different time zones. The various time zones can of course be configured to your liking.

  

• Jump to date: Quickly allows you to list your meetings for a particular date, without you having to scroll through all the different views to get to the date.

  

• Next Meeting: Shows a countdown to the next event in your calendar and a brief snippet representing the latest upcoming events.

  

• Free or Busy: Allows you to see which of your friends are free or busy at this moment. This is of course on the basis of the calendars your friends have shared with you

  

It is nice to see that Labs has been included in Google Calendar. It offers customization and an outlet for newer, more interesting features to make it to the main application (like Tasks, which recently became a part of the main Gmail Application). One can certainly expect more interesting features in the future. I am already in love with “Attach Docs” and “Next Meeting”.

Which ones do you like the most? What would you like to see in Labs next? Tell us in comments, we would love to know.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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We have previously covered Google Labs features for Gmail. Here are 7 more innovative Gmail labs features that should not escape your awareness.

To enable Gmail Labs features, log into your Gmail account, go to >Settings >Labs, browse all experimental features and check enable for the ones you would like to use, then finally save your changes. As will be described below, some features require further settings to come into effect.

Signature Tweaks

No one wants to scroll through pages of quoted text to find contact information in the signature, right?

Signature Tweaks is one of the most simple features, taking care of this signature dilemma.

It tweaks your signature so that it will appear above the quoted text, rather than below it, which would be the default behavior. Simple, but cool.

Location in Signature

If you travel a lot, Location in Signature could be a fun feature or simply an easy way to share with your friends where you currently are.

To make your location appear in your signature, you need to enable this feature, have a signature (>Settings >General) and check “Append your location to the signature” below the signature box.

If you’re sneaky you could of course cheat a little and change your location manually. I wonder whether anyone has sent eMails from Mars, yet. April Fools Day anyone?

Superstars

Superstars gives you several more “stars” to star or visually tag your mail.

You can edit your superstars by going to >Settings >General and dragging icons from “not in use” to “in use” and vice versa.

Personally, I would love to see an even bigger variety of icons, for example gif images to draw extra attention and smileys.

Previews In Mail For Yelp, Picasa, Flickr & YouTube

Here we have one of the newer set of features added in mid March. It’s actually four individual features, but the essence is the same. If someone shares a Yelp review, a Picasa, Flickr or YouTube link, you no longer have to open the URL in a new browser tab. You can view the preview right in your mail.

Multiple Inboxes

Gmail supports filters, but filters can too easily drag mail from your attention, by silently moving them into the target folders. With Multiple Inboxes you can move important mail back into your field of vision. It gives you five extra panels that will appear in a custom location next, above or below your inbox.

Once the Multiple Inboxes feature is enabled, you can go to >Settings >Multiple Inboxes and add search queries for messages you always want have handy.

Here is how that will look like. On the left is my inbox, on the right you see the extra panels, which are starred messages, drafts and eMails from Twine.

Mail Goggles

This one will keep you from sending stupid mails in the middle of the night by making you solve math problems before being able to send an eMail.

Per default it is active Friday and Saturday between 10pm and 4am, but you can manually adjust days, times and difficulty level under >Settings >Generals.

Undo Send

Despite any precautions, accidents happen. So if you still send the wrong mail to the wrong person, you may be delighted to learn that Google has just recently implemented a feature that allows you to call your mail back.

Unfortunately, the undo feature will only work for a few seconds right after the message was sent. So you have to quickly realize your mistake!

What novel features would you like to see in Gmail Labs?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Keeping this in mind Gmail has some new lab features that allow you to keep a close watch on other Google services.  One of the most recent ones and the subject of this article are the Google Docs and Google Calendar gadgets, as well as the ability to add iGoogle gadgets to your Gmail account.

These are all available under Labs on the settings page (or you can click on the labs icon at the top as well). Once you are there you just have to enable the appropriate Lab features.

Google Calendar Gadget

This gadget lets you view upcoming events, locations and details as entered in your Google Calendar.

Google Docs Gadget

Provides the ability to view recent as well as starred documents in your Google Docs Account, as well as providing search functionality to search documents right from within the Gmail page.

Add other Google Gadgets

While the Calendar and the Docs gadget are provided as distinct lab features, you also have the ability to add iGoogle Gadgets to your Gmail page. This opens up an array of possibilities considering the number of gadgets that are out there.

The screen real estate is limited in the left bar of Gmail page where all the gadgets are placed when you add them. However with a new lab feature surfacing every now and then, we can hope this shortcoming is overcome sooner rather than later. Moreover, we may now see developers developing gadgets specially for Gmail or modifying existing ones for Gmail.  Nevertheless, there are some gadgets out there that don’t require so much space.

Recently Gmail also received Canned Responses and Gmail Goggles. Check them out as well. Also check out the “Navbar Drag and Drop” Labs feature which allows you to reorder content on the left navbar.

The Lab features are stepping stones to what could finally find its way into Gmail. Google collects data about usage of Labs features and there is a Google Group which you can join to have your say. You can also use the “Send Feedback” link to post on the Google Group for that particular Labs feature.

While some of the Lab features are intended for a little fun like the Old Snakey and Gmail Goggles (yes I don’t believe it can stop you from sending drunk emails), there are other features that are pretty useful and make you wonder why it was not included in Gmail in the first place.

Which Lab feature is your favorite?  Definitely the calendar and docs gadget in Gmail are two of the more useful labs features.  What else would you like to see in Gmail?   What gadgets are you planning to add to your sidebar?

Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The 4 Fabulous Gmail Labs Extensions You Should Try Out (8)
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“Canned responses” is a feature which allows you to save standard email templates inside Gmail and then use them later by dropping down the menu and selecting which one you want.

Every day, I find myself typing out the same kinds of emails – acceptances, rejections, confirmations, facts, figures, etc. It can get rather tedious – and time consuming – writing out the same basic format of email. It can also be really tiring on the hands!

So for the past few months, I was keeping the email templates in MS Notepad files and copy-pasting them into emails whenever I needed them. But I haven’t liked that method very much as it involves too much folder opening, file opening and copy-pasting. Whenever I am trying to clear my inbox, I like to stay in the same browser window/tab and do things fast with keyboard shortcuts. So I was looking for something quicker and easier, something where I could just pull up a standard email template with just a few clicks.

So you know, I am convinced Google is pyschic because whenever I think about wishes like that, suddenly a feature like “canned responses” comes along!

To switch the feature on, just go to Gmail Labs in your Gmail account, scroll down, find “canned responses”, click “enable” and then click “save changes”. Now whenever you go to compose a new email, you will see “canned responses” above the new email window (underneath the subject line) :

When you first enable it, it will be empty. The one you see here is mine that I quickly filled up to give you some examples.

To save some templates, just write the email then click the “canned responses” link seen above. In the “save” section, there is an option called “new canned response“. Click that and you’ll then get the following box :

Just type in what you want your canned response to be called and click “OK”. It will then be saved.

That’s it basically. If you want to test it out, just open a new email compose window, drop down the “canned responses” menu and choose your template name. It will then immediately appear in the email window ready to be sent! No typing necessary!

This is probably one of the best, most useful features that Gmail Labs has brought out. What do you think? Will you be using this one? Is there anything Gmail Labs can do to improve it? Let us know in the comments – you never know, Gmail might end up reading it!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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