Getting started guidePrintBrand new to Gmail? No problem. Here's a quick run-through of what you'll need to get comfortable. Contents Settling in First, you may want to take a minute to familiarize yourself with the navigation links:
Organizing and sorting your mail Next, you'll probably want to get organized. If you find the idea of browsing through thousands of messages to find a single conversation a little daunting, you can make things a lot easier using labels, filters, and search -- and you won't have to delete anything. Here's how it works:
At this point, you can click Archive; the message will disappear from your Inbox, but will remain listed when you click the 'Mom' label, or All Mail. You can also still search for your archived messages. All you're doing when you archive a message is helping to keep the Inbox clutter down. You can also label and archive messages in one fell swoop by using the Move to drop-down menu.
If you don't want to mark all your messages from Mom one-by-one, you can set up a filter. The filter will detect when your mom emails you, and automatically applies the 'Mom' label (and if you'd like, you can send the message straight to the Mom section and skip the Inbox). To do so, just follow these steps:
You don't have to limit your use of filters or labels to any single person or email address, though; that's just the beginning. You can create filters to detect messages with certain words in the subject line, the body of the email, or messages sent to a specific person, and automatically perform any of the actions shown in the image above. This means you can automatically apply a star to messages from your mom that contain the word 'cookies.' Get creative. You can always go back and perfect your filters; just click Settings and select the Filters tab .
If you're worried that you won't be able to find a specific conversation after you move it from your inbox, search has got you covered. When you'd like to find a message, you can enter a word or phrase in the search field and click the Search Mail button. Your results will be displayed with your search terms highlighted in yellow. If your search is a little complicated -- maybe you're trying to find a message from your mom, about a restaurant, and you remember that she sent it to you and your brother. Just click Show search options. You can enter all of these criteria (and then some) to refine your results. And there you have it. If you'd like, you can read up on more tips for using search operators to find your messages.
Instant Communication As you're looking around, you'll probably notice the Chat box in under the links in the left navigation bar.
To chat with a friend:
Unless you choose to chat off the record, your Chat conversations will be archived and stored in your Gmail Chats label. This way, you can search for content from your chats, or you can browse your previous conversations by clicking the Chats navigation link. Further reading That should be enough to get you started. If you have any questions, please feel free to visit our Help Group and ask our community of users, or browse the Help Center for more information.
updated 2/12/2009 You may also be interested in... |
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