My 5 Favorite Gmail Features

I have been using Gmail for a long, long time and there are some interesting things you can do that few people know about.  For example if you have ever clicked ‘Send’ on email and then cringed because you forgot something or realized that you sent it to the wrong person, then you need the first thing on my list of My 5 Favorite Gmail Features:

1-  Undo Send: You can stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after you click send.  Usually you have about 30 seconds.

2-  Quote Selected Text: You can quote a portion of text from a message you are replying to. Just highlight the text in the email you are reading and click reply.

3-  Message Sneak Peek: I really like this one too. Just right click on the message and you can see what the message says. 

4-  SMS Text Messaging: Allows you to send text messages from Chat. Very cool. Important Note for Canadians: Due to Government & Monopolistic Corporate restrictions, Canadians cannot access Google Voice or its features yet.

5-  Extra Emoji Emoticons: Compose messages with a richer set of Emoji characters.

Now before I show you how to enable these features you should know that these are experimental features from Google. As such they are not ready for prime-time and may break, change or disappear at anytime.  Personally, I am fine with that.  However, if you are prone to annoyance when something new does not work, then maybe these features are not for you.  If you are fine with it then here is how you install them.

A- Click on the ‘gears’ box in the top left corner of your Gmail page.
B- Click on settings.
C- Click on Labs to the far right.
D- Choose which features you want by clicking ‘enable’ on each one.
E- Don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the page when you are done.

I hope you enjoy these features as much as I am.