3 Gmail Tweaks to Save Time
When I am supposed to work on a particular task, such as doing research online or writing a blog post, I often break off my activity to check my inbox for any new important messages I am expecting. Although I like have this excuse to procrastinate a little bit, I see more merrit in the new Gmail Labs development Google announced recently. Similarly, I tend to lose a lot of time sending files. Now, I can’t use any of these excuses to get away from the real work at hand…
Gmail introduces browser title bar tweaks
Go into the Gmail Labs settings in your Gmail, and activate Title Tweaks. This will transform your Gmail inbox tab from what it currently says (probably something like “Gmail – Inbo…”) to actually showing how many unread messages you have. This means you can easily keep an eye on incoming mail without constantly checking your inbox.
New Developments in Gmail Attachments
One thing that has irritated me for as long as I have been using Gmail is the attachment upload. I never knew how long it would take to send a message (because there was no way of knowing how far along the attachment was actually uploaded), and when sending more than two files uploading each one separately could tack on upwards of 5-10min to each email.
Gmail has made some changes though, and now you can select multiple files at one time to attach to your message.
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While each file uploads, a status bar tells you how far along things are. If it seems like it might take a while, you can just go off and do something else while you wait. I was thrilled to see this change, no more guessing or repeatedly hitting the send button, thinking for some reason that might speed things up. Now I attach ten, twenty files in a flash, and see when they are ready for sending.
Are you activating the new labs feature? Is everyone as happy as I am about the faster way of attaching files? In the mean time, my productivity is much better thanks to these new time savers in Gmail.Â
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Thanks for this article. The tweak about including the number of new messages in the tab bar is awesome.
But I’m really struggling to find three tweaks in this article.
I’ve only found one.
The attachment tip is really only a piece of information, not a tweak.
And there ISN’T a third item.
Can someone give me a simple list of the three tweaks? Maybe I’m just not seeing them?
Thanks.
Blue skies
love
Roy
there s no 3 … its only 1 tats y u cant see it !
The attachment tweak isn’t the best. Once the attachment is added, I can’t view it, whereas earlier I could.
Sometimes I like to make sure I’m sending the right resume to a recruiter and like to double check that, which I cant do anymore.
you can still view the attachments — once they all upload, the filenames will turn into links about 9 seconds later, when gmail sends the file location information back
only 2 tweaks here?
love the title bar tweak, but it would be even better if the number were before the “inbox”. for example:
(1) Inbox
instead of
Inbox (1)
Since I usually have many tabs open in Chrome, my (1) still gets cut off.
Hi Roy,
Well, when I wrote the article I saw the Gmail unread count as number 1, the multiple attachments at a time as 2, and then the upload status bar for the attachment as 3. Sorry that wasn’t clear, I suppose it is how it made sense to me but I’ll be more sensitive to this in my future articles!
Christine
The CIA has redacted the third tweak because it was ~way~ too powerful for the general public to handle.
-LV
I agree with V on the attachment tweak gripe given the lost links, and don’t see the nonny’s “9 seconds later” thing happening like it used to. (Maybe it’s just something about using Firefox on a Mac – like the occasional need to “reload” to log in.)
Previously, once the attachment was complete, the doc title became a link after a second or two, and you could open it in a new window/acrobat reader. This was very, very helpful when attaching files with similar names/different file folder origins. Now, there’s no way to do a last minute “safety check” to make sure that you’re attaching the right file. Please, Google – bring the link back!