The labels that Tom mentioned are also huge helpers and time savers. Tom
didn't mention my favorite "lab" though called "Autocomplete". Enabling
this setting will try to guess what you are looking for (any address, name,
or operator) as you type it into the search box at the top of the gmail
window.
After switching our school to google apps, I had a brief overview of all of
gmails features including the threaded email "conversations", consistency
when viewing from any computer, sending mail as a different address (which
pretty much defeats the purpose of using any desktop app), and the google
labs settings. I suggested to everyone that even if they don't use any of
the labs at all, autocomplete is a must. (Another shoutout goes to "undo
send").
When I used to use a desktop app, thunderbird was my app of choice, yet
even that does not even come close to comparing all of the features that
gmail has to offer. I have successfully converted all but a select few of
our staff to the web gui from the outdated disaster that is outlook.
Go ahead and try out the other labs as well as the search operators and you
may find you start getting more used to gmail. Personally, I have 8
different email address all pulled into my gmail and I never have a problem
finding what I need.
Good luck!
Rick Castorani
Technology Coordinator
Academy in Manayunk
On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Keith E Gatling <keith@gatling.us> wrote:
> I love Gmail, I really do. And their apps are good for the purposes they
> were designed for (which is for collaboration and editing, NOT for printing
> final, formatted copies of your work), but I've got one real problem with
> Gmail that may just be MY problem, but I'd love to know if anyone else here
> sees this as a problem, and knows of a workaround for it before I suggest
> to
> my school that we let Google take over our email function.
>
> It's the archiving. Not that it can save every embarrassing email message I
> ever wrote and the responses; but that it doesn't seem to know when to turn
> itself off. I know that their goal is to make it easy to find everything
> you've ever sent or received, but their methodology often makes it hard for
> me to get through the stuff I want to look through.
>
> For example, I have one Gmail account that everything goes to from all my
> other accounts. It also sends stuff as my other accounts. The message
> you're
> reading is coming from that account. As mail comes in from each of those
> accounts or somehow triggers a filter option, it gets its own particular
> label.
>
> Looking at all of this stuff in the inbox can be a little overwhelming, so
> I
> figure that switching to just looking at the items with one particular
> label
> would make life a little easier. No. Now I'm treated to all the messages
> I've archived that also fit under that label. The only way for me to just
> see the current messages seems to be to *delete* anything that I don't
> think
> I want anymore.
>
> Is there a better way to handle this?
>
> Thanks.
> --
>
> keg
>
> ========================================
> Keith E Gatling
> Email: keith@gatling.us
> Blog: http://wordfromg.blogspot.com
> Website: http://www.gatling.us/keith
> The fact that I'm open-minded doesn't mean that I have to agree with you.
> ========================================
>
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