5 Useful Gmail Labs Features
Friday, September 25, 2009 by Mike Bertolino 
Image: Google Operating SystemGmail is the email client of choice for a lot of students, and for some universities as well. Besides having the most advanced web-based email service around (for free), Googlers have added a lot of useful experimental features for users to try out.
Multiple Inboxes
This feature is great for students who are involved on campus. It creates a separate part of the inbox, just to show messages that have a certain filter. The message filters are easy to create too. Where the drop down reply menu is, there should be a "Filter Messages Like These" button. Put a label on it, like Outdoor Club, and click save. Go to the Multiple inboxes tab and create a pane for the search query, like "label:Outdoor Club" separating those messages from the rest. This will help clear your head when it comes time to focus on one club or class.
Chat to the right
Widescreen laptops and computer monitors have become commonplace among college students. With all this extra horizontal screen realestate, it would make sense for bring their chat up to the right side. It creates a separate region for the screen where your large-ass buddy list can take its rightful place at the top of your page.
Inbox preview
At some universities, mine in particular, the internet can be painstakingly slow at times. When Gmail is getting it's sexy Ajaxed-up self all ready for your eyes, it could take a little while. So if you really need to know if your professor emailed you back, or if another group member emailed you their part of a presentation, you'll know even before the main page opens. So, if your desired messages aren't their then you'll be able to stop the loading before anymore of your time is wasted.
Mail Goggles
This is an interesting feature. When opening Gmail the client asks you some math problems to see if you're in the right state of mind to be sending mail. I feel like this Labs feature was made for college students. Hopefully it will prevent you from send an email to your prof telling him/her how you feally reel about that class, but maybe you're good at math.
Forgotten Attachment detector
Group work is much harder in college than it was in high school mostly because there is more of a barrier when it comes to working outside of class. Most of the work is usually done through sending email attachments of work to be proofed and coalesced by other group memebers. Well, what if you forget to send the attachment. Not only does it make you look like a crazy person, but it could be detrimental to your group. So thanks to Gmail and their expert message reading technology, they'll know when you have forgotten to add something.
Do you have a favorite Gmail Labs Feature? What is it? Comment below to share!
Reader Comments (5)
I'm a big fan of Multiple Inboxes, email filters and labels. I use my personal Gmail account to pull in my .edu account (also Gmail) via POP, set up a mail filter that automatically labels all of my .edu mail "school" and set up a second Inbox to keep it separated. Set Gmail to use your school address whenever you are replying to a message and you won't have to login to multiple Gmail accounts all day. If you are initiating a message, just be sure it's coming from your school account or your professors will ignore it (at least mine do). Sounds like more work than it really is and it's great to be able to check all my mail in one place and still have it separated.
"Undo Send" is another great feature. It comes in handy most when you accidentally select unwanted recipients and realize that you did so after hitting the send button. Or when you realize that you just sent an e-mail without the required attachments.
undo send +1
today a new labs was released for hiding labels that have no unread messages.
Great , It is the topic of inspiration for those people, who are not want to work when they have time.
Pop3 support is definitely the best feature that I use. I love being able to pull my school, work and personal accounts and being able to reply, with gmail being smart enough to automatically know which account I want to send from. labels is a close second, and the attachment catcher saves me some embarrassment too.