Tips and Reasons

If you already use Gmail, you can stop reading now. The reasons I am going to list here are for those who use some other email service, and think they have everything a free email service can provide. I’ve been using Gmail for four years now, and have been mighty pleased with it from day one. Below, are a few reasons why I think everyone should move to Gmail.

1.) Its Fast

The number one reason why Gmail rocks is its speed. Since it uses JavaSscript, the load times are reduced to a minimum. Unlike an html based webmail service, it only loads the content of your email when you click it, and not the entire inbox over and over again. Its difficult to describe speed through words. Try using it yourself and see the difference. Its way faster than all the major webmail providers out there.

2.) Conversation style emails

This is my favorite feature. If you send an email to someone, and they respond to you, and then you reply, and they respond again, and so on and so forth, this entire email conversation is grouped together and displayed as one single thread. This makes it really convenient to understand the context of the conversation. In other webmail services, each new reply is treated as a new email. This way, an email back and forth can completely take up the first page of your inbox.

3.) Effective Spam Filtering

During these four years, I have never had the trouble of deleting spam from my inbox. Gmail has always smartly filtered out all the spam messages sent to me into the spam folder. The great thing is, it never blocks the right messages from reaching you. I have email accounts with all the major webmail services, and some of them blocked valid emails by sending them to a ‘Bulk’ folder, which you never notice getting full. Gmail’s spam filtering technology and algorithms are very frequently updates to fight the newer types of spam messages that show up. If a user does receive spam, by just clicking the ‘Report Spam’ button, they teach Gmail to filter similar messages in the future.

4.) Massive Storage Space

Gmail started off with offering 1 GB of free storage space. On 1 April 2005, they announced an increase in storage space to ‘Infinity + 1.’ It started with 2 GB and has kept increasing every second. Currently, the storage space stands at 7281 MB [5 January 2009], and is still increasing. What does this mean for the end user? No need to delete any emails ever. They have even increased the single email size limit to 20 MB.

I remember those days when typical webmail services offered 5-25 MB of inbox space. Organizing and deleting emails was a huge task which if not done on time meant not receiving any further emails. For me, and a lot others, Gmail was, and still is, a blessing.

5.) Linking Multiple Email Accounts

You can also link any other email ids you may have to your Gmail account. For example, I have linked my Yahoo email id to my Gmail account. This means that I can now send an email from my Yahoo email address through my Gmail inbox. Pretty neat, huh?

6.) Organize your Mailbox

You can also create labels for the emails you receive. You can specify a specific email address to be labeled or keywords in an email that give it a label. For example, I can have all the emails sent to me that contain the keyword ‘wii’ to be labeled as ‘Nintendo.’ This way, I can quickly identify emails that might interest me first.

I can create filters, and have such emails get automatically labeled. The labels will appear as a link in my inbox. I can click them and access all similar emails in one place, rather than skimming through the inbox. I can even choose to have them skip the inbox and go directly into archives. You can do a lot of different stuff, and create custom filters and labels that suit your needs. Its simple!

7.) Embedded Text and Video Chat

One of the coolest features of Gmail is that it offers text and video chat in the browser itself. The first ones to offer a chat application right in your inbox. It works as good as a the Gtalk application. It is really convenient to have everything you need right there in one browser window.

8.) Search Through Emails

This is just like Google search, in terms of results and speed. Searching for an email you received months ago can be done by just typing a keyword or keywords you remember from it. It can be a part of the subject line or the body of the email. You can even search using the email addresses you got it from as the search query. Again, this is way faster than the other webmail services out there.

9.) Chat History

Gmail allows you to save your chats. When you create a new account, you are asked to choose to enable or disable this feature. This has come in really handy to me on numerous occasions. Someone gives you a telephone number over chat that you need to save in your telephone directory. You forget to do that and finish the conversation. You remember a few days later, and just go back to your chat history and get it from there. Heck, I no longer even think of saving important information while getting it through chat. I know its safe in my Gmail inbox already.

10.) Link with Other Google Products

Your Gmail id can be used to access other Google Products like:

• Orkut
• Checkout
• Calendar
• Blogger
• Docs
• Reader
• Picasa

It works great as a Single sign on.

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So if someone asks me to describe Gmail in one word, it would be ‘convenience.’ Go ahead and try this amazing service that Google offers for free. You can Sign up for a new account here.

YHK

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