GMail FAQGeneral Questions:
1. Do I need a Google Account?
2. How do I get an account?
3. Are there keyboard shortcuts?
4. Where do I go to suggest a feature?
5. Where is the official Google Help page?
How To Questions:
1. How do I organize my messages?
2. How do I delete a Label?
3. How do I clean up my Inbox?
4. How do I add a Contact?
5. How do I create a Contact Group?
6. How do I add a contact to a group I created?
7. How do I remove a contact from a group?
8. How do I delete a contact?
9. How do I add contacts to the email I am writing?
10. How do I add contacts to an email I am forwarding?
11. How do I set up automatic forwarding?
12. How do I create a filter?
13. How do I set up POP?
14. How do I set up IMAP?
15. How do I disable the chat module?
16. How do I change my password?
17. How do I get messages from another email account?
18. How do I send messages as another email address?
19. How do I delete a single message from a conversation?
20. How do I copy/cut and paste into an email I am composing?
Other Questions:
1. What are Labels?
2. I deleted an email, can I get it back?
3. I marked something as spam that really isn't, what do I do?
4. What is this conversation view?
5. Can I turn off conversations?
6. Can I add/remove a message from a conversation?
7. How many people can I send a single email to?
8. How many emails can I send each day?
9. I deleted/renamed a Label, what happens to the conversations in that Label?
10. Why can't I see the Google Talk box on the left side?
11. Why don't I have any of the cool new features I hear people talking about?
General Questions: [top]
1. Do I need a Google Account? [top]
No. When you sign up for a GMail account, you automatically get a Google Account. If you already have a Google Account with a non-GMail email address, you can still sign up and link the two accounts.
In some countries, you can sign up by going to gmail.com and you can sign up. However, most of the world (including the US) has to be invited. To be invited to GMail, simply ask someone you know that has GMail to send you an invite. If you don't know anyone with a GMail account, then you can go to this Google Group. Alternatively, you can go here and see if your country is available for SMS sign up. If it is, then all you have to do is enter your cell phone number and Google will send you an invite code via SMS text message.
Of course. There are lots of keyboard shortcuts that pretty much means you don't need a mouse :) So, here you go: *Note, this is from the official Google Gmail help site.
Also, this table is kinda big, so click here to show/hide the table.
4. Where do I go to suggest a feature? [top]
Right here.
Right here.
How To Questions: [top]
1. How do I organize my messages? [top]
In GMail, you will see things called labels. Labels are just like folders in other mail providers, only they are a lot more flexible. When you organize mail with folders, you can put each message in only one folder, unless you make a copy. However, that is not the case with labels. You can apply as many labels as you want to a single message with out copying it. You can think of labels as Post-It notes. you can put as many Post-It notes on a single document. However, remember that there is only ever ONE copy of each of your messages, no matter how many labels you apply to it. If you delete it while viewing any label applied to it, it will be deleted from every label.
Simply go into your Settings and click the Labels tab. Once there, find the label you don't want anymore and click delete next to it. Remember, if you delete a label, you do NOT delete the messages that had that label applied to them.
Many people get annoyed because all of their messages are in the inbox and it becomes very cluttered. However, it is very easy to "declutter" your inbox. All you have to do is select the message(s) that you want removed from your inbox and click the Archive button. This will remove the selected messages from the Inbox view. The messages will still be in your account. You can apply any number of labels to them before you archive. You will be able to view these messages by either clicking the "All Mail" link on the left side or by clicking the green label link you applied to it. Remember though, you do not have to apply a label to every message.
Click the Contacts link on the left side. Once there, click Create Contact, fill in any details you have and click Save.
Click the Contacts link on the left side. Once there, select the contacts you want to put in this group. Next, look for the drop down menu next to the Delete button. Click that and select New Group.
Once in the contacts section, click the Groups tab. Once there, click the Create Group link next to the drop down menu.
6. How do I add a contact to a group I created? [top]Click the Contacts link on the left side. Once there, select the contacts you want to add to the group. Click the drop down menu and select the group you want to add them to.
Once in the contacts section, click the Groups tab. Once there, click the group you want to add a contact to. The Group details will open up and you will see a box to put more contacts in.
7. How do I remove a contact from a group? [top]Click the Contacts link on the left side. Once there, click the Groups tab. Click on the group name that you want to remove a contact from. When the Group details open, select the contact(s) you want to remove from the group. At the top, you will see a button, "Remove from group". Click that and the contact(s) you selected will be removed from the group. Note: If you click the Delete button instead, you will get a confirm dialog box. If you get this box, you are about to delete the ENTIRE group, not a member of it.
Click the Contacts link on the left side. Once there, click the All Contacts tab. Select the contact(s) you want to delete and click the Delete button at the top.
In GMail, there are two ways to add contacts to an email you are writing. The first way is to click the Contacts link on the left side. Once there, click the All Contacts tab. Select the contact(s) you want to write the email to and click the compose button.
I think that this is the easier way. Click the Compose Mail link, or just type "c". Your cursor will go in the To: box by default. Now, just start typing the name OR email address of who you want to send the message to. After the first letter, GMail'sauto complete will kick in and give you a list of your contacts based on what you typed. The more you type, the less choices you will get. You can either select the contact you want via mouse or by using the down arrow key, or you can continue typing until there is only one choice, and hit enter. This will add that contact to the To: box. You can do this for however many contacts you want. Just start typing details of a different contact.
This is done the same way as with a normal message you are composing. However, this is the only method that will work. Your cursor will go in the To: box by default. Now, just start typing the name OR email address of who you want to send the message to. After the first letter, GMail's auto complete will kick in and give you a list of your contacts based on what you typed. The more you type, the less choices you will get. You can either select the contact you want via mouse or by using the down arrow key, or you can continue typing until there is only one choice, and hit enter. This will add that contact to the To: box. You can do this for however many contacts you want. Just start typing details of a different contact.
Click on the Settings link in the top right corner. Once your settings load, you want to click the Forwarding and POP tab. In that tab, you will see this:
All you have to do is click the radio button next to Forward a copy of incoming mail to. Enter an email address in the next text box, and select what you want happen to GMail's copy from the drop down menu. Note:This will forward ALL incoming messages. If you want to forward messages that match a certain criteria, then first you have to make a filter. (See next question)
12. How do I create a filter? [top]
Next to the search box, you will see the link to Create a new filter. Click it. A new set of text boxes will now show up asking you for search criteria that the filter will search for. Enter as much as you want. Use a minus sign for "not" eg. If I put -gmail.com in the From text box, this filter will do whatever I tell it to do to any incoming message not from a GMail email address. Once you enter all the search criteria you want, click Next. GMail will now run the search to see if any message you have meets these requirements. If any do, they will show up under the Create Filter box. The next part is where you tell GMail what to do with the messages it finds. You may also chose to have GMail do the selected action(s) to any message you currently have that match what you are setting the filter up for (any message(s) that appear under the Filter box). To do this, simply check to box Also apply filter to # of conversations below. Once you have made all the selections you want, click Create Filter and your filter will be all set and you will be returned to where you where in GMail before you clicked the Create Filter link.
Click on the Settings link in the top right corner. Once your settings load, you want to click the Forwarding and POP tab. In that tab, you will see this:
- Disable POP - POP will be disabled and you will not be able to download any messages.
- Enable POP for all mail - This will allow you to download EVERY message that you have stored on GMail, whether you have previously downloaded it or not.
- Enable POP for only for mail that arrives from now on - Just like it sounds. The messages you have stored on GMail will NOT be downloaded. The only ones that will are any new messages.
14. How do I set up IMAP? [top]
As of right now, GMail does not support IMAP. However, many people seem to want it, so if you go here, you can suggest it to GMail.
If you don't like the Quick Contacts box on the right side of the screen, all you have to do is click the Standard without Chat link at the very bottom of the inbox.
The only way to change your password is to change the password to your Google Account. To do that, click here and follow the directions.
As of right now, GMail can NOT POP to another mail server to download your messages. However, if you want to receive all of your email from one central location, then you will have to set up each of your other email addresses to forward their messages to your GMail address. Since there are probably an infinite amount of email providers out there, I can not go about telling you how to do that for each one. I can tell you though, it will probably be similar to GMail's process.
This is a very cool feature that GMail has. It allows you to change the From: field of messages you send to any other email address you own. This is useful if you want to use GMail as your central email server, but still want to have different email addresses. To do this, click Settings and then the Accounts tab, and you will see this:
All you have to do is click the Add another account link. When you click the link, another window will open up asking for the email address you want to be able to send from. After you put the email address in, click Next Step and then Send Verification. This will have GMail send an email to the address you entered so you can prove that you own that account. Once you receive the verification email and click the link provided, you will be able to send messages from that email address.
Once you have set up the email address, you have to select it to send from when you are composing a message. When you compose a message, you will now see a drop down menu right above the To: box. In this menu will be every email address that you have verified. Just pick the one you want and you're all set!
19. How do I delete a single message from a conversation? [top]
Open up the entire conversation and click More Options in the top right corner of the message you want to delete. Simply click Delete this message, and that message will be removed from the conversation and sent to the trash.
The easiest way is to just use the keyboard. A lot of people seem to complain that when GMail is set in the Rich Text Formatting (the one with all the cool format buttons), they are unable to right-click to cut/copy and paste. However, if you just use your keyboard, you will be able to cut/copy and paste no matter what.
| Windows | Mac | ||
| Copy | Ctrl+C | Command+C | |
| Cut | Ctrl+X | Command+X | |
| Paste | Ctrl+V | Command+V |
Other Questions: [top]
1. What are Labels? [top]
Labels are just like folders in other mail providers, only they are a lot more flexible. When you organize mail with folders, you can put each message in only one folder, unless you make a copy. However, that is not the case with labels. You can apply as many labels as you want to a single message with out copying it. You can think of labels as Post-It notes. you can put as many Post-It notes on a single document. However, remember that there is only ever ONE copy of each of your messages, no matter how many labels you apply to it. If you delete it while viewing any label applied to it, it will be deleted from every label.
Of course you can. When you delete a message, it is simply moved to the trash. All you have to do is click the Trash link and select the message you want to recover and click the Move to Inbox button.
If you realize what you did as soon as you did it, you can click the Undo link and it will be unmarked spam. However, if you did something else after wards, all you have to do is click the Spam link and select the message and click the Not Spam button.
GMail organized messages you receive into conversations. These conversations group together messages that are part of the same thread. When you reply to an email, or forward it to someone, you will add a new message to the conversation. Conversations can be very helpful if you send the same email to many people, and require a response from them. Instead of having a separate message for each reply, they will all be grouped together for easy access.
Although most people like conversations, there are some that want to get rid of them. However, at this time, it is not possible to do so. Since many people ask about this, Google has added it to the suggestion page. Feel free to suggest it :)
The only way to remove a message from a conversation is to delete it. At this time, you can not add a message to a conversation, or remove one without deleting it. However, this too is a common suggestion that has been added to the suggestion page.
The limit GMail has set up is 500. This is a total. The 500 people can be spread out between To: CC: and BCC:, but you can not send a single email to more than 500 people. However, I would suggest creating a Google Group if you want to send an email to say, more than 10 people.
Courtesy of choon[remove]@cognilearn.com:
The limit GMail has set up is 500.
In short, nothing. If you delete a label, then the conversations simply get the label removed from them. If you rename one, then the label applied to the conversations will be changed.
Look under all of your messages in the middle of the screen. Make sure that you click the Standard with chat link. If you don't have that link, then you may not be using a supported browser. Right now, only Internet Explorer and Firefox are able to use the chat module. Another possibility is explained here.
Make sure that your language setting is English (US). When GMail gets new features, they are rolled out first by users, meaning users will get the feature(s) in clumps, so some will have it, but others won't. The feature(s) are also first rolled out in the English (US) language first. This helps GMail get all the bugs out of the feature(s) before they waste time translating a feature that doesn't work.
