Gmail from Google is one of the world’s most popular email services. We recently brought you the best Chrome Extensions to de-stress your life. Now, we look at 3 Gmail tricks and how you can make your life that little easier.
Tag your emails
Gmail gives you much more than just the email address you asked for. So let’s imagine your email address is seymorebutts@gmail.com. You are also the proud owner of seymore.butts@gmail.com, s.eymorebutts@gmail.com and so on. This is great for free trials and the likes that just check your email. Far more importantly, you are also the owner of seymorebutts+whateveryoulike@gmail.com. Honestly, you can put anything you like in there. If you sign up for a newsletter, change your mail to seymorebutts+newsletter@gmail.com and then create a rule within Gmail to organise these
Far more importantly, you are also the owner of seymorebutts+whateveryoulike@gmail.com. Honestly, you can put anything you like in there. If you sign up for a newsletter, change your mail to seymorebutts+newsletter@gmail.com and then create a rule within Gmail to organise these emails into folders.
Recall Gmail email
Unfortunately, if you’ve just sent a mail and are desperately trying to recall it, you’re outta luck. You can cancel an email within 30 seconds of sending it. The only problem is that you’ll need to have set this is up already. Within Gmail, pop on over to settings and search for ‘Undo send’. Here, you can choose between a 10 and 30 second period where you can undo sending a mail. This setting simply delays the sending of emails and displays a popup after sending asking if you would like to undo.
Super simple, but I can honestly see this savings your arse on so many occasions. Set it up.
Set up two-step authentication
You will curse me for suggesting this and are probably shouting at your laptop, “but that stresses me out”. Sure, two-step authentication might slow down your logging into new machines but you know what sucks more? Losing control of your account and all your emails being available for the world to see. Yup, see? It’s all about perspective.
I personally love two-step authentication. It’s one of my favourite Gmail tricks – yeah, I’m a nerd. But I’m a nerd, comfortable knowing that my Gmail account is safe – along with the millions of services I log in with using my Gmail details. My authentication method of choice is Googles dedicated two-step app. When you’re logging in just fire up the app and tap in the code. Make sure you do set up a phone number too though. I learned that’s a lifesaver when you’re on holidays with no data.
If nothing else, set up that ‘undo’ option. Imagine the relief of recalling that mortifying mail just as you spot the boss was CC’d. That alone is one of the most valuable Gmail tricks.
