How to Use Gmail

Is Gmail different from the email account you may have had before?

No. You receive, send, delete and archive mail. As before, so with Gmail.

Yes. If you struggled with an ever-growing Inbox, set up a myriad of filters to have messages moved to folders at least semi-automatically, never seemed to find an email in the folder it should have been in or have given up long ago, you will appreciate the easy — easy — archiving, finding and labeling of messages Gmail provides.

How to Use Gmail

For each message in your Gmail Inbox:

• Read the message.
• Reply right away if you can.
• Apply all relevant labels to the message.
  • You can use the Star for urgent to-do items instead.
  • Create new labels as you need them. For example:
    • A label for mail and newsletters you want to read later.
    • Labels for all the projects you are working on.
    • Labels for (larger) clients you are working with.
    • A label for ideas.
    • Labels with a date when you need to re-visit messages.
  • You do not have to set up labels for specific contacts. Your Gmail address book does that automatically.
• Optionally, mark the message unread to add importance and visual boldness to it.
• Archive or, if you are certain you will not have to visit the email again, trash the message.

To return to certain emails:

• Search for message content or attributes.
• Use your Gmail Contacts to find all correspondence with certain people.
• Refer to your labels to gather relevant mail.
  • As soon as a label no longer applies to a message, remove it.