Some of my friends still use email services other than GMail. I offered to send them invitations but they said they don't want to use GMail as it doesn't support "folders".
While it is true that GMail doesn't allow you to organize your mail in folders, it has a much more flexible and powerful feature, namely "labels".
The basic difference between filters and folders is: while a message can only reside in one folder, it can have more than one labels. Also a labelled message can exist in the inbox or the "All Mail" section, which contains all the emails, new and archived.
This in itself is pretty good.. but if you couple this with email filters, you get a powerful email sorting and organising system.
For example, I have created a filter which labels all emails with "slashdot" in the from field to the "slashdot" label, and I have also specified that these mails should be automatically archived(they must not appear in the inbox). So now, I can read all my slashdot newsletters by clicking on the "slashdot" label in the labels section. I can even use "label:" as a search attribute, as in google's advanced search options.
Another example: Sometimes I get very irritated when my friends email me "forwards"(hint hint ). So I have created a filter which automatically archives and applies the "forwards" label to all mails with "fw" or "fwd" in the subject line! This is very convienient for me as I can check my inbox for any useful emails, and I can always check the "forwards" filter when I am bored and to check if there is something interesting.
Another prominent feature that GMail has is free POP access. Other web based email providers usually charge a fee for POP access.I have also noted that the GMail spam filter is much more effective than Yahoo Mail (well.. in my observations!)
"GMail for your domain" is a new service launched by Google, where you can use GMail as the mail handler for your domain names. For example, if you have a website with a domain name as "mycompany.com", you can setup a GMail account to send and recieve emails from "me@mycompany.com". This is very useful as GMail's 2.7 gb(and increasing!) storage and features make it a good option for professional users who don't get similar facilities from their web host.
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1 comment:
Dude, this is actually a bad idea.
If someone sends you a message which they forwarded along, but isn't a `forward` then you won't recieve it.
A slightly smarter idea is to see how many people it is being mailed to.
If it is some > x, with Fwd in the subject, then junk it.
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