10 Essential Gmail Hacks and Add-ons!

Posted 03/29/2009 at 8:25pm | by Josh Kampschmidt

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Never Forget to Attach Documents

Forgotten Attachment Detector is a very useful feature if you frequently e-mail people with attachments.

To turn on this feature, login to Gmail and click on the Settings button in the top right hand corner. Now click on the Labs tab. Scroll down until you find the Forgotten Attachment Detector and Enable it. Before you exit, make sure you click on the Save Changes button at the top or bottom of the page; otherwise, the changes will not be saved.

If you want to test it, compose a new e-mail and mention in the body that you are attaching something. When you click on the Send button, Gmail will ask if you really want to send the message.

Filter Friends and Foes

Filters are one of the best features included with Gmail. You can do almost anything with filters. You can categorize your e-mail, automatically delete certain e-mail and even flag certain e-mails for review.

Also included with Gmail is the ability to use the plus sign as a filter. At first glance, this doesn’t seem incredibly useful, but what if you get a lot of spam e-mail or you want to flag one of your friend’s e-mails for review? This is where the plus sign would become useful.

Since there is no limit to the number of filter combinations you can have, we are going to limit the filter discussion to the plus sign.

First, we need to set up the filter, so login to Gmail and click the Settings tab at the top right hand corner of the screen. Now click on the Filters tab and select “Create a new filter.” 

Let us assume that you are receiving over 50 spam messages a day in your Gmail inbox. Therefore, for this example, you would use something similar to maximumpc+spam@gmail.com . Since you are using an account that is different from ours, you will have to type your e-mail address instead of ours.

Type your e-mail address +spam as shown  and click on Next Step. Select the automatically delete option. This will send the e-mail directly to the trash so you don’t have to delete it manually.

Now whenever you sign up for something that could possibly be spam, just type youremail+spam@gmail.com and it will automatically delete the e-mail for you.

This doesn’t only work for spam, you can have many other filters that flag friend’s e-mails, star important e-mails, and do many other things. Just be sure to create the filter first as shown above and give the appropriate e-mail.

More Filter Fun and Importing

Now that you can import filters into Gmail, it is simple to create custom filters and export them.

Unfortunately, this Labs feature does not work with Offline Gmail enabled, so you will have to disable that Labs feature in order to use this one.

Right click on the link here and select "Save Link As."

Save the file to your Desktop. Login to Gmail and click on Settings and select the Labs tab. Enable the Filter import/export lab feature. This will allow you to merge the file you downloaded with Gmail.

Click on the Filters tab, click the Import filters button and browse to find the filters file.

All incoming e-mail will be flagged with the appropriate labels.

These filters will do the following:

• Label all Microsoft office documents, spreadsheets and power point presentations
• Label most images
• Delete all e-mails to yourself
• Label all music files
• Label most social networking e-mails

Use Gmail as a Productivity Manager

If you are already using Gmail as your default e-mail client, then you should be using it as a productivity manager.

You can download and install GTD Inbox from here.

After the browser restart, login to Gmail and the welcome window will display the following:

We recommend you scroll down on the welcome window and click the “Automatically Add Default Status Labels” button. You can create these labels later, but it makes it simpler if you let the program auto-create.

After it is done, click the “Go to Gmail” button in the right hand corner of the screen.

You now have a new set of labels to work with. These labels allow you to put labels next to the various e-mails you receive.

Now click on the Settings button in the top right hand corner of the screen and select the GTDInbox button.

In this section, you can create different label categories. We recommend you click on the Labels tab under GTDInbox and create some new Label categories for the different types of e-mails you receive.

Insert HTML signatures into Gmail

The one feature that Gmail lacks by default is the ability to add HTML signatures. Most other mainstream webmail clients allow you to do this. By using the Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures Mozilla Firefox add-on you can create and insert your own HTML signature.

Getting the add-on is a little tricky. Click here to go to the add-on page. Do not download Version 1.11.09, you want to download Version 1.11.11. This version is the most current version and is the only one that should be used. Even though it says the add-on is experimental, it is not. Mozilla has a huge backlog of add-ons to go through before they considered it released.

Click on the “Create a new user account” button unless you already have an account. Once you create your account, click here and install the 1.11.11 version. If you can’t get the 1.11.11 version to display, login to the Mozilla Add-ons page first and make sure you click the Automatically login button checkbox. Then close the page and try clicking the above link again.

Once you get the add-on installed, login to Gmail. Click on the Compose Mail button. You will know the add-on is working since you will have extra signature options at the top of screen.

Click on the Options button and you will see the Blank Canvas main screen. Change the signature position to “below quoted text” and put a checkmark in the “Show Reinsert button” checkbox. The below quoted text option puts the quotation at the bottom of the e-mail. The reinsert button will allow you to add your signature if it is deleted somehow. Click on the Save Options button to save the changes.

Now click on the “Create Signature” button. Since we are creating an HTML signature, we are assuming that you know how to use HTML, so insert the HTML code you want to use as a signature.  We are going to use a spread Firefox button.

After you type or paste the HTML code, you will see a preview of the signature.

If you like the way the signature looks click on the “Save Signature” button. Gmail will automatically insert your new signature into a new e-mail message. If you do not want to e-mail someone right now, just close the window or navigate to a different webpage. When you log back into Gmail, you will automatically see the signature, but if you don’t for some reason, click on the Reinsert button.

And finally, click the next page for our five favorite Gmail Lab add-ons!