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https://sites.google.com/a/tcea.org/tcea-google-academy-2013/jennifer-bergland

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Right Inbox has rapidly become a quintessential tool to cue up emails and keep my conversations moving forward. After any given week of cold email outreach, I can easily have 50 plus email follow-ups to cue up. Sunday night is dedicated to just that task. Right Inbox working in the background all week after cueing up emails on Sunday night allows me the freedom during the week to respond accordingly without letting ANYTHING slip through the cracks.

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Schedule Emails to Send Later, Reminders, Recurring Emails

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Right Inbox has rapidly become a quintessential tool to cue up emails and keep my conversations moving forward. After any given week of cold email outreach, I can easily have 50 plus email follow-ups to cue up. Sunday night is dedicated to just that task.

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Clean up your inbox in minutes & keep it that way forever

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Cut your team's email management time in half & get started on the road to a cleaner inbox and more productive day with SaneBox. Start your free trial now!

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Supercharge your inbox with collaboration. Convert emails into tasks.

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Ever since Google created the email wonder known as Gmail, people have been raving all about it, and it doesn't look like there's an end in sight because of Google's continual updates to the service and the lack of similar competition. As such, there are plenty of people who are using the service, with that number growing on an hourly basis.

Using Gmail for your email needs also allows you to make use of items which are designed for Gmail, such as extensions for numerous browsers. One such extension which may be of particular use to you is an extension called Send From Gmail.

About Send From Gmail

Send From Gmail is an extension for the Chrome browser, and is developed by Google itself. The extension essentially allows you to share links with others by composing an email using Gmail after clicking on the extensions button in the top right corner. It is updated rather often, as it keeps up well with Gmail's changes, as you'll see below.

Use

Once the extension is installed, you'll have a new extension button in the top right area of your browser. It will have Gmail's logo with an arrow at the bottom pointing to the right. Now, whenever you're on a page which you'd like to share with someone, simply click on the button. A new, smaller Chrome window will appear that appears to be loading Gmail. When it finishes loading, you'll see that it has composed a new email within Gmail, and has already filled in the subject field with the title of the website, and the body is filled in with the URL that you are on.

All you will need to do from this point is fill in the email address of the intended recipient (or have Gmail autocomplete it if they're in your address book), add an additional message to the email's body if you would like, and hit send. For those who have a keen eye, the compose window will look exactly like Gmail's new pop-up compose window.

The new compose window is one of Google's latest additions to Gmail, where you can compose from anywhere within Gmail. No matter if you're looking at your list of emails, actually reading an email, or anything else, you'll have the compose window in the bottom right corner to allow better multi-tasking. This same compose window is what is pulled up whenever you click on the extension's button.

Settings

Send From Gmail also has support for Google Apps accounts if you'd prefer to use one with the extension. Simply right-click on the extension's button, and choose Options. From there, you can type in the domain of the Google Apps account domain to use it over a regular Gmail account. Additionally, you can insert a prefix which will be inserted into the subject field of all emails generated by the extension. More information about these two options can be found on the settings page itself.

Installation

It is an easy affair to install the extension into Chrome. Simply search for " send from gmail by google" in the Chrome Web Store, or simply follow this link and then click on Install. In no time at all, the extension should be added to Chrome and ready to use.

Conclusion

Although quite simple, Send From Gmail does make it easy to save and share interesting links with others via email a lot quicker and easier. As virtually everyone has an email address, sharing URLs via email is one of the most common methods, and having such an extension to do most of the dirty work makes it effortless.

How do you share your URLs? Do you use Gmail or another service? Let us know in the comments!

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Share Links With Friends Using Send From Gmail [Chrome]

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Ever since Google created the email wonder known as Gmail, people have been raving all about it, and it doesn't look like there's an end in sight because of Google's continual updates to the service and the lack of similar competition.

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Have you ever received an email from your boss, family member, friend or some other connection with an attachment in it, then saved that email because you wanted to access the attachment later? You probably have, multiple times. The problem with this is you end up with an astronomical amount of attachments floating all over your inbox that you have to hunt down whenever you want them.

Well hunt no more. There's a solution that integrates right into Gmail and makes it extremely easy to find all of your attachments in one place and also in multiple places at the same time. It can also connect to Dropbox, Box and Google Drive.

The solution is Attachments.me, which was briefly covered previously 10+ Best Apps for Your Dropbox 10+ Best Apps for Your Dropbox If you've been using Dropbox for a while, you may not have noticed that a whole ecosystem of applications have been built up to use the service. Over time, these apps have sprung up to... Read More . I am going to show you how you can free your attachments from your inbox once and for all.

Setting Up Attachments.me

The installation of the service is very simple. It walks you through the entire process and introduces you to all the features. This doesn't take much time and I encourage you to take the tour. But first, we must get the Google Chrome or Firefox extension. Attachments.me is currently only available for Google Chrome and Firefox (sorry IE, Opera and Safari users), but, according to a tweet on their Twitter account, they are working on some new improvements. It is also available as an app for the iPhone.

Once you install the extension, open Gmail and you'll automatically be prompted to start learning about it.

Once you start the tour, you should receive an email.

When you are going through the process you will be prompted to allow access to your Gmail and any of the cloud storage services that you decide to use with it. Go ahead and allow access, otherwise it has no way of communicating with these other accounts.

Save Options Within Opened Emails

When you open up an email with an attachment in it, Attachments.me will automatically detect it and make it appear in the top right corner of the page. As you can see in the screenshot above, this is the email from Attachments.me sent during the tour. You have the option to download the attachments - this is very convenient when there is an entire email conversation that has an attachment somewhere, but it is in a message that you would have had to find by opening all the threads instead of simply downloading it on the side.

The other option, of course, is saving it to the cloud. Attachments.me automatically saves your attachments to the cloud. You'll see this if you go to http://attachments.me while logged into Gmail. However, I will touch upon the web interface later. Aside from saving directly within Attachments.me you can also save to your Dropbox, Box and Google Drive Accounts.

Linking To Cloud Services

Linking to the different services is pretty straightforward. Simply click the button to link your account and follow the prompts to allow Attachments.me to access the services. In the example below, you can see that I only have my Google Drive connected, but you can virtually have them all connected to Attachments.me, providing that you have accounts with them all first.

Adjusting Cloud Storage Rules

Attachments.me is great because it gathers up all of your attachments in one place and syncs them to your other services, but it actually does more than that. It actually creates filters of sorts, or what it calls "rules." This allows you to set specific rules for it to follow.

For example, let's say you're working on a new project with your boss. Instead of the hassle of downloading each attachment, then moving it it out of your downloads folder to another folder on your computer, you can create a rule that automatically sends the attachment to Google Drive, Dropbox or Box.

Better yet, you can also specify a specific folder so that attachments from that sender will always go to that folder.

If you ever need to change the rule to add an additional email recipient or to adjust anything else, simply select the rule and click modify.

Searching For Attachments

Attachments.me makes searching for attachments within Gmail pretty slick. It's integrated directly into the search field in Gmail.

Changing Account Settings & Adding More Rules

You may have noticed by now that you have a new blue button with a paperclip near your name on the Gmail search bar. This is where you can go to give feedback, disable your account, access the website and manage your rules and cloud services.

Attaching Attachments

This is perhaps the most useful feature - the ability to attach files from your cloud services.

Once you connect your cloud services you can click the link to any of them and look through your folders without ever opening a new tab in your browser. This saves a huge amount of time instead of having to find the file on your computer and upload or drag and drop it into Gmail. Sure you could copy the share link from a file one of your services too, but this is still quicker and easier.

Please note though that this only inserts a link for the attachment. The recipient can then access the file via the link and download it from there if they desire.

Web Interface

Aside from Gmail, there is also a web interface that allows you to easily view all of your attachments - which is nice, but it also provides an excellent place to search for your attachments. Yes, you can search for them in Gmail, and that's great, but sometimes it's nice to have more screen space - this does just that.

When searching for attachments you can select specific accounts to look in and specific files to look for. You can also bookmark the search for later reference.

The search treats each word as an individual search. If you type cool funny cat, you will get three "tags" each representing it's own search. If one of these tags is throwing off your search - let's say funny is, then click the "x" beside the word and it will be removed from the search. If you want to perform that same search with all three words being one complete search, place quotes around them. It would look like this: "cool funny cat" - just like a Google search.

When you hover an image, attachment details such as the sender's email address, date it was received and the complete file name is displayed. There are four options that are also displayed:

When "View" is clicked, the file details will be displayed below the attachment. These include the email address that it was sent to, when the attachment was received by you, the type and size of the file, and a link to the original email the attachment was received by.

Using Attachments.me With Non-Gmail Accounts

Gmail is currently the only service that Attachments.me works with. However, there is a workaround (unless it's with a Yahoo account). You can actually forward your emails into Gmail. To do this go to Settings > Accounts and Import. Then under " Import mail and contacts" (the second column down), click "Import from another address." Enter your email address and login credentials and you should be on your way to getting your mail all in one place. I highly recommend doing this if you have multiple email accounts, regardless of whether or not you are using Attachments.me.

If you are going to forward your email addresses to Gmail, you might as well send emails from Gmail with them too. This option is right under "Import mail and contacts" called " Send mail as:" Click the link " Add another email address you own," enter the email address and then send the verification. There are two additional options:

Reply from the same address the message was sent to

Always reply from default address

I suggest checking " Reply from the same address the message was sent to " to prevent accidentally sending an email from a different address than it was sent to and then confusing the recipient, but this is entirely up to you.

Conclusion

There you have it - the new revolution of email attachments. Personally, I see this as a game-changer in all email clients, and an even better reason to use Gmail if you already are not. At first I thought it was just a simple extension that I wouldn't really use, but as I discovered more and more features, I realized that this can be a valuable tool for everyone who uses email - and seriously, who doesn't use email?

Do you have another current frustration with the email process? Have you discovered a solution for the problem?

For more on mastering Gmail, check out MakeUseOf's Ultimate Guide To Gmail The Beginner's Guide to Gmail The Beginner's Guide to Gmail You may already have a Gmail account. Or, you're thinking about signing up for one. This guide has everything you need to make the most of that shiny new Gmail account.Read More .

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Liberate Your Gmail Inbox Attachments With Attachments.me

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Have you ever received an email from your boss, family member, friend or some other connection with an attachment in it, then saved that email because you wanted to access the attachment later? You probably have, multiple times.

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Gmail is a fantastic email client. In fact, I will go as far to say that it's the best. With that said, can it really get any better? With these Chrome extensions, it can. And not just "better", but also fantastically improved. Through my experience of using Gmail, I have stumbled upon lots of extensions for it - many of which I try and then uninstall. There have been some, however, that have really impressed me. These range from contact management to visual adjustments to scheduling and email management tools.

Do note that not all of these can or should be used together. Some are "competitors" and others just have features that take the place of another extension. That said, I feel all of these are excellent in what they do and should be tried out - I guarantee you will like them.

Before we get started, my goal is to show you the options. My personal opinion will come out and I'll do some slight comparisons between rival extensions, but the primary purpose is to show you what is available and allow you to make the decision for yourself depending on whichever works best for you.

Insert Text is a subtle addition within Gmail that allows you to easily... well... insert text. After adding your preferred text in the options, all you have to do is right click in a text box in Gmail, hover over " Insert Text " in the dropdown menu and choose your weapon.

Notice that I said "a text box" and not just the email text field. This means you could use it for adding certain canned recipients into the "To:" field. It also means you can insert specific text into the subject line. This is a huge time saver for people who you email constantly.

The options include two different text views: plain text and rich text. You also have the ability to organize your different text files into folders, and import and export files.

Insert Text is the kind of tool that is either very useful or not useful at all, depending on how you integrate it into your workflow. In other words, it is very customizable and only as useful as you make it.

Right Inbox is an essential to Gmail and fills several missing features, the biggest and most popular one being scheduling emails. But there are also other features that it provides, such as email reminders. These are reminders that you set to send an email back to you based on different criteria, like if your contact doesn't respond within a specific time frame that you have set, or if you just want to be reminded about the email later either because you don't have time now, or it's more relevant some time in the future.

There is one other feature that puts Right Inbox above similar extensions and that is the ability to track the email you're sending. You can now get an email whenever the recipient opens your email and also can be notified whenever a link in an email is clicked. The free version permits ten uses of each of these features per month.

Boomerang is the more popular contender to Right Inbox. They share many of the same features, including only allowing 10 uses per feature per month in the free version. However, Boomerang differs in that the free version doesn't support email tracking in the sense that you are notified if a recipient opens your email or clicks on a link. It does, however, offer more features in the premium version.

These include notes for email reminders so that you know why the email reappeared in your inbox a week later. Other premium features offered are mobile access and the ability to schedule recurring messages.

Both Boomerang and Right Inbox integrate very well in Gmail and while they have their slight differences, they are quite similar. I recommend you try both out to determine which fits you best.

If you haven't heard, the creators of Boomerang For Gmail have created likely the best tool to connect Gmail and Google Calendar. Honestly, it's quite surprising that Google hasn't already created something like this, but I'm sure glad there is something now.

No more bouncing back and forth between tabs, copying and pasting event information or accidentally scheduling something in the wrong place because you had the wrong week selected in Google Calendar. The video above does an excellent job with describing all of the functions that Boomerang Calendar can do for you.

One feature that blows my mind is the ability to detect times and dates in emails. It's quite accurate and helpful.

As a bonus, we have got some invites! Just enter the code " makeuseof " to get it!

Note: there is a limited number of invites, so hurry!

Created by Xobni, Smartr Inbox for Gmail is like your personal emailing assistant. Once you log in and catalog all of your emails and contacts with Xobni, you can see contact information, statistics for which contacts are emailed the most, your most recent emails, etc. Smartr Inbox is always displayed on the right side of Gmail whether an email message is open or not. This is either a benefit or a nuisance, depending on how you like to view your inbox and also how big your screen is. Although, the sidebar is collapsible, which is a feature that I haven't seen in other similar extensions to Smartr Inbox.

Smartr Inbox offers other features such as newsfeeds from your social networks directly within Gmail. I'm still deciding whether I like this or not. Email can be a place of productivity. "Can" being the key word. By bringing in the option to read and post tweets and statuses to social networks, productivity is threatened. Now, if reading and posting tweets and statuses is somehow a part of increasing productivity workflow, great, but this could likely be a distracting feature to the majority of Gmail users.

Rapportive

Rapportive is another contact management tool for Gmail. And actually, it came first before Smartr Inbox. It's also been mentioned here and there on MakeUseOf and is definitely a favorite of mine.

Rapportive works by displaying your contacts' information that they allow to be seen publicly on their social network profiles. This allows you to connect with people much easier and faster than before. Personally, I like the way that Rapportive integrates into Gmail better than Smartr Inbox. Xobni did a great job with their plugin, but in my opinion, I prefer Rapportive - it's fast, lightweight and simple.

I've actually already mentioned Attachments.me on MakeUseOf, but this article wouldn't be complete without it. I won't expand much on it - I'll leave my other article to do that, but I will say that it is an excellent sidekick to Gmail and will transform the way that you access and manage your attachments.

Gmelius, also previously mentioned on MakeUseOf, is a tool that allows you to clean up Gmail and customize it the way you want. Although some features that it provides may be controversial, such as removing ads (but Rapportive does this too), many of its features can improve your productivity and your overall experience in Gmail.

I have taken a couple screenshots of my Gmail before Gmelius was enabled and then after. Some changes are subtle, while others are drastic. Each person's preferences are different and Gmelius provides a lot to choose from.
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Minimalist for Everything has been included in our Best Chrome Extensions page and is the updated version of Minimalist for Gmail, which was covered here previously on MakeUseOf. Minimalst for Everything is in beta and still growing, and currently only has two "modules" - Gmail and Google Reader, but more is promised to be coming in the future and I'm guessing you can expect there to be a module for pretty much... everything. When trying this extension out, I saw great potential, but personally I experienced some quirks. I wasn't entirely sure if it was just my computer, or if there were some bugs to be worked out of it, but it was nothing major.

Personally, I feel Gmelius is the more stable option at the moment, but try out Minimalist for Everything and see how it compares! And if it doesn't quite meet your expectations (although I bet it will), keep an eye on it because I predict there will be some excellent improvements and changes for it very soon.
Before: After:
Conclusion

There are many other Gmail and Google Chrome extensions available that help with productivity, however, I feel that these are some of, if not the best. If you have one of your own, I would love to hear about it - and I'm sure all of the other readers would too!

Be sure to take a look at this other article that features some excellent Gmail extensions. Looking to become even more productive within Gmail? Shortcuts are key. Also checkout the MakeUseOf Guide, The Ultimate Guide To Gmail.

Which of these extensions do you use in Gmail? Remember to share the ones that you use that aren't listed here!

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Turn Gmail Into A Productivity Beast With These Chrome Extensions [Beta Invites]

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Gmail is a fantastic email client. In fact, I will go as far to say that it's the best. With that said, can it really get any better? With these Chrome extensions, it can. And not just "better", but also fantastically improved.

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Gmail templates involve canned responses that you can quickly insert into any email to fill out all the details you'd otherwise spend time writing with each new message.

The very first step is to actually enable message templates in Gmail, which you do with the Canned Response feature. However, it's not enabled by default.

1. Click the Settings gear in your Gmail's toolbar, just below your image.

2. Select Settings from the menu.

3. Go to the Labs tab.

4. Make sure Enable is selected for Canned Responses.

5. Click the Save Changes button.

Creating a template in Gmail is relevant to the Canned Responses feature. See the above section to make sure you've got the templates functionality enabled.

Here's how to save an email for future use as a template in Gmail:

1. Compose a new message in Gmail that you want to use as the template. Leave the signature in place if you want it to appear in messages sent using the template. You can leave both the Subject: and To: fields empty since they are not saved along with the template.

2. Click the More options downward-pointing triangle in the toolbar at the bottom of the message, next to the Discard draft button.

3. From that new menu, choose Canned responses and then New canned response... from the Save section.

4. Type the desired name for your template. This name will be for you to refer to later when you select the template, but it's also used as the subject of the message (though you can always change the subject once you've inserted the template).

5. Click OK to save the Gmail template.

Here's how to send a canned message or reply in Gmail:

1. Start a new message or reply.

2. Click the More options button from the bottom right side of the message's formatting toolbar (it's the one that looks like a down triangle).

3. Choose Canned responses from that menu.

4. Select the desired template under the Insert area to immediately import that template into the message.

5. Make sure you fill the To: and Subject: fields.

6. Edit the message as needed and click Send as usual.

Note that Gmail will not overwrite any existing text except if you highlight it before inserting the template's text. For example, you could type something manually and then insert a templated message to have it included after your custom text.

You might need to change your Gmail template at some point. Here's how:

1. Start with a new message. It's best to make sure the entire message area is empty so that you can edit only the canned response.

2. Click the More options button in the message's toolbar (the tiny down arrow at the bottom right).

3. Click Canned responses.

4. Choose the template you want to change, from the Insert section, so that it will be imported into the message.

5. Make the desired changes to the template.

6. Go back to the More options and Canned responses section.

7. Select the same template as before, but under Save so that it will be saved over the existing template.

8. Click OK when you see the Confirm overwrite canned response prompt that reads This will overwrite your saved canned response. Are you sure you want to proceed?.

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How Do You Set Up and Use Email Templates in Gmail?

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Gmail templates involve canned responses that you can quickly insert into any email to fill out all the details you'd otherwise spend time writing with each new message. The very first step is to actually enable message templates in Gmail, which you do with the Canned Response feature.

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We're always looking for ways to make Gmail faster. One of the most common delays happens after you hit that "Send" button, when you're waiting patiently for a couple seconds for Gmail to send your message. If you send a lot of email, that can add up to a lot of lost time.

To help give you that time back, there's a new feature in Gmail Labs called Background Send. Once you turn it on from the Labs tab in Settings, you can get on with what you're doing while Gmail quietly sends off your mail in the background. You can keep reading your inbox, compose new messages, chat with people - all the things you'd usually do. You can even send more than one message in the background at the same time.

If anything goes wrong (maybe you got that email address wrong, or maybe your connection had a hiccup), you'll see a warning message that prompts you to go back and fix the issue or try again later.

The "Send errror" message will stay around until you decide to fix things, so you don't have to stop whatever you're doing right away. The only catch is that you should wait for your mail to finish sending before you close Gmail or shut down your computer. If messages are still being sent in the background when you shut down, your messages are probably going to be lost. You'll know you're good to go when you see a message like this:

We've been trying out Background Send for a while here at Google, and we like it a lot. We hope you like it too, and we hope it gives you back a little bit of your day!

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We're always looking for ways to make Gmail faster. One of the most common delays happens after you hit that "Send" button, when you're waiting patiently for a couple seconds for Gmail to send your message. If you send a lot of email, that can add up to a lot of lost time.