Last Updated on September 13, 2016 by Content Team
This post is ghost written by one of my bloggers, I outsource 95% of my life. The author’s views below are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Gareth James aka SEO Doctor
For more than 9 years in the market, Gmail has been regarded as the King of Webmail. As of June 2012, Gmail has already served 425 millions of users worldwide despite of Hotmail’s popularity and many other rising webmail providers. With 57 supported languages, Gmail is everywhere! From desktop to Smartphone and now eve invaded the cloud.
Gmail is a very friendly tool of communication, easy to master and free. But before taking advantage of its capabilities, take this moment to know Gmail’s powerful features you will love.
99% Secure Against Threats
-Gmail has a very strong malware and virus checking. Its scans file attachments saved on Google’s Gmail servers while updating anti-malware software to combat more threats leaving your computers safer and clean from viruses. For almost 4 years of usage, I didn’t encounter any of my Gmail account get hack or having problem with uploading or downloading attachments. In terms of spam handling, Google Gmail does a very good job of scanning your incoming emails and identifying unsolicited email by patterns.
One-stop access to essential Google services
–Using your Gmail account you can easily login to central Google’s services such as Google Plus, Blogger, Youtube, Picasa Web Album, Google Drive, Google Maps, Adsense, Google Apps, and other related services. That’s the power of Google that people trust!
10+ GB of Free Email Storage Space
Unlike other webmail provider, Gmail offers 10 gigabytes of email storage making reliable for no urgency to delete your old emails.
25MB per email capacity
Aside from 10GB email storage, Gmail is also able to support 25mb of file attachments where you can use to send multiple photos and even big necessary archived files.
Excellent uptime
‘Uptime’ is how many days per year that the service is working properly. In the case of Gmail, I have only seen 3 server crashes in 4 years, and those doesn’t lasted more than an hour. For a service that charges me 0 dollars, I cannot complain. Another thing is Gmail is powered by Google, a giant with the backing of hundreds of full time employees enough to ensure full maintenance attention.
Rich Text Editor Support
Gmail has full rich text features, the ability to use stylish fonts, colors, indents, bullets, hyperlinks, emoticons, and the pasting of photos directly into a message. In some instance it can’t preserve well the font format of copy-paste text but it’s very possible to make your email looks professional.
Gmail Speed
Regarding the speed, Gmail delivers messages quickly while Yahoo Mail and others will usually take 30 seconds to 5 minutes to post your message towards recipients. By the presence of Google servers around the world Gmail send emails in just 10 seconds the moment you hit send.
Attachment Alerter
This feature notifies you whenever you forgot to upload the attachment file before hitting the SEND button but you wrote an” attach file or attachment” in your message.. Gmail will ask if you mean the attachment file or sent it anyway.
Shortcut Keys
For fast message typing utilize the available Gmail key shortcuts. Currently Gmail has over 60 useful keyboard shortcuts and combo keys. Check out this link for more help! https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6594?hl=en
On-the-fly Document Viewer and Editor
Using Gmail you can easily open and edit files online through the Document Viewer and Editor. You can open images in full-view, PDFs, spreadsheets and other supported documents without downloading or using any third party tool.
Free SMS credit in Chat
Only few people know this. Gmail has a free SMS chat feature where you can use to send SMS to mobile although the chat credit is only 50 messages per account, you can increase the credits when someone replied back to you. Usually, I use this free SMS for emergency or when I am out of load and need to contact someone through their mobile.
Now that you already learned Gmail’s essential features being a Jedi Master, you must also learn how to become a professional emailer.
Gmail has been the choice of many as a channel for communication, not just for personal but mainly on business transactions as well. As such, it’s very important to learn the basic email etiquette while understanding the tools / features to be more responsible email sender. Below is the list professional tips polished for your reference.
15 Gmail Jedi Master Tips
1. Avoid silly email address
Off course if you’re too artistic you add special characters and numerical in your email address but this seems not a good practice. I mean email address like: thisemailisalreadytaken@gmail.com , it doesn’t sound credible much more if you will use it for business communication. I myself would think you’re a spammer. Use your name or your nickname + company name like: jean_sunlitecorp@gmail.com would be decent enough.
2. Setup IMAP and POP access
Take advantage to access Outlook in your Smartphone or in your workplace desktop by enabling of IMAP and POP forwarding features in Gmail. You can setup this thru Gmail Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP options.
3. Never forget to Undo Sending
Sometimes while proof reading your email you might sent it out accidentally and there’s something important details left or an ugly typos you need to correct. But don’t worry you can still get back your email before 30 minutes by using the Gmail Undo feature.
4. Always check your attachment
Before hitting the Send button check properly your attachment file if it was really the correct one to avoid delay of re-uploading. Some big files can’t be uploaded immediately if you have a slow internet speed. But good thing with Gmail as I’ve mentioned it has a feature that can alert you if missed to upload your attachment file.
5. Create Gmail Signature
Setup your name, title, website url, and company name or a logo image in your Gmail signature. Gmail signature can be customized anytime in the Settings menu.
6. Customize Font Style and Gmail Theme
You felt bored on your default Gmail look and text styling. Don’t worry you can reformat your font and change it to better-looking one. For personalize Gmail theme background your can check Life hacker’s tips.
7. Utilize Gmail Shortcut Keys
As I’ve mentioned earlier there are helpful keyboard shortcuts that you can toggle to open Gmail functions instantly by pressing the “?” question mark symbol you can access Gmail shortcut helps and learn more combo keys for fast email typing.
8. Sharing Files
No, we’re not talking about attachments; we’re talking about larger files, as well as files with tasks attached to them. Using apps like Box, you can share all types of content, while at the same time assigning tasks, getting feedback, approval, and more.
10. Activate Autoresponder
If you’re going on a vacation for few days or too hectic week schedules that you’re unable to open your inbox never forget to let people know that you’re still alive, joke! I mean just inform them that you’re not to avoid them thinking your ignoring their message. Using Gmail’s automatic vacation response, you can send a polite reply that lets them know you’ll be back soon and get in touch them shortly.
11. Take advantage of Rich Text
Never limit your creativity. Improve your message composition by using Gmail’s Rich Text Editor you can create bulleted lists, underline, indent, quote, insert image, hyperlinks and a lot more.
12. Add your” From” Name
Often times you may forget to put up your name in “From” box and the tendency is your recipient may not be able to find your email quickly. If your name is just your email address it lacks a little branding or simply unfriendly so take awhile to setup your name before sending the message.
13. Canned Response
Rather than typing the same answer, you can create ‘canned response’ in Gmail which can help you to save time in sending the same messages to different recipients. Another thing this would make you consistent in your message, and improve your response time.
14. Filter your email
The main purpose of filtering your Gmail message view is to avoid any emails get ignored or unattended. By clicking the square box in the upper lift corner of your inbox you can bring in unread / read emails, starred or unstared. Using filtering option you can also organize emails that need to archived or mass deleted.
15. Backup your Gmail Messages
Although Gmail has backups of your messages but who knows having your own will make your flexible. The most quick and automatic method of setting up a backup is forward your messages to another webmail services like Yahoo or to your own email server. You can simply do this by going to Gmail Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > Forward a copy of incoming mail to > Enter email address.
Hopefully you learned something from those tips and don’t hesitate to leave us any feedback for this guide such as recommendation or want to add up any ideas.
Thank you..:)
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