For all GMail users, we often tend to face one big problem which keeps compounding with the ever increasing inbox that GMail offers. Yes, the problem is to retrieve an old email which I might have indexed somehow with a star, a label or something that I can’t remember properly. We know how to get to the labels, but even the labels could be a bit tricky and not so helpful in giving the specific output that we need. And this is when the necessity of the G-Hackman [such a cool name] rises. I am talking of some search keywords to drive away all your Inbox Mail Search worries.
Yet another addition to the GMail Labs. Google today introduced Inbox Preview feature in GMail Labs. The point to be noted here is though, in a world of high-speed internet, and GMail anyway offering high speed mail service-is this feature going to be useful at all? If you can’t long enough to let your Inbox load, or you are still stuck in the days of not-so-fast Internet connection, this feature might be of some help.
Similar to other features from GMail Labs, you will need to enable this feature from Settings, search for this particular Lab feature, and Enable. Once enabled, this feature will let users preview the 10 most recent messages. This is just a simple, static preview, and hence, saves time for people who might not have time to sit down to check whether they have got any new mails or not.
I certainly don’t understand the argument quite completely. But reading GMail’s verdict on it, here is what Peter Balsiger had to say:
… imagine that you access Gmail on a super slow connection from a remote place in Ethopia where it might take minutes to completely load your inbox. The disappointment is larger when you find out that there is nothing new to read and you could have saved all that time.
Fair enough. For the whole post, visit this link [New in Labs: Inbox Preview].
Related Discussions.
Gmail Gets Inbox Preview:Appscout
Latest GMail Lab-The Inbox Preview: Web Pro News
Gmail Inbox preview Feature: Ditii.com
Preview Gmail Inbox while it loads: Instant Fundas
Preview GMail lets you check Inbox before Loading: Tech Info
Lifehacker – Gmail Inbox Preview Shows Message Blurbs While …: Lifehacker
GMail never stops innovating, does it? The latest addition to the never-ending list of innovations in GMail Labs is Translation. And what is it? Once enabled in the Labs Settings, this will enable users to translate mails in the inbox to the language of usage. Say e.g. you got a mail from a friend who wrote it in French. Enabling this Lab Setting, will show a link titled: Translate message to: English. This will happen if the users setting is English. The default translation language settings can be changed in the Setting Tab. Google has already rolled out this feature and it works like a charm.
Although, I would like to see features available in the Translate page of Google; i.e. features like translate the message in multiple languages. Just for fun. I know that has not much of a business sense, or does it not?
Further innovations on GMail could very much work on the lines of how Google handles translated web pages.Based upon your default language settings, if a mail is sent to you in a different language, the inbox could automatically translate your message in your default language with a Disclaimer stating: This is an automated translation of your Mail which was written in Language A. For the original message, please click this link.
For the official announcement post on GMail blog, click here [Automatic Message Translation]
_Your Search for Mail ends here
Shifting mail base is what we call a pain in the bum. With my GMail inbox now touching over the 5 gigs mark, I cannot even think of moving to any other mail provider. And that’s why I can exactly understand why my best friends wouldn’t get shifted from Yahoo or Hotmail or even Indian providers like Rediff and Indiatimes. But as I had mentioned in an earlier post – innovation is thy name, GMail. A new feature has been rolled out which allows users to import not only contacts, but even older mails as well.
So, GMail can now migrate email and contacts from a lot of email service providers and the list is pretty damn exhaustive. The big names are definitely featured -Yahoo, Hotmail/Live, AOL and also some familiar names in the US and UK such as Comcast and Sprint. (See the full list here).
In the official GMail blog post, it has been mentioned that businesses and schools using Google Apps however, will not be able to use this feature. Another functionality added is to try and test GMail for a period of 30 days, by importing just your new email to GMail (after which I believe you never would want to go back). Depending on the size of the inbox, importing would take 24-48 hours.
