Using Gmail

Since 2012, I have owned an Gmail account and when I first got it, I used it primarily to communicate with friends via email and then via Hangouts. But then as time went on, I used it to communicate with family members and then to receive email notifications from Google+ when that existed and from a platform that used to exist called Google Product Forums (GPF for short) and now my email notifications are from the Google help communities found on the www.support.google.com platform. Gmail has been my main source to receive emails though a long time ago I had a brief history with Yahoo and then knew the ins and outs of Juno. I do also have experience with Gmail provided by a G Suite by Education account (meaning I have G Suite Gmail, which I don't use anymore since not part of that college but still have access to that account so sometimes do check up on the account, which can work differently than free Gmail since the admin has the ability to turn off certain functions).

So as you might know Gmail is a type of email provider so you are probably thinking what's so special about that product that you use just to send emails back and forth between people or to receive subscriptions/newsletters from companies. But it the what you can do inside of the Gmail that can make the adventure and fun. Gmail does not have folders but labels. Gmail does have a trash bin so if you have accidentally put something into the trash bin, you have up to 30 days to take it out of there. Classic Hangouts conversations are saved in a Gmail label called "chats" so if you want a good way of trying to locate a specific Hangouts comment, you can use the search box inside of the "chats" label. Gmail in all labels and the inbox does have a search box where you can search just by putting in random words or by using your keywords with search operators. You can filter messages in Gmail to make them go straight to trash or to bypass inbox and go to a label. You can definitely create lots of filters in Gmail, which means can have more than 500 of them. You can even create a label that is nested underneath a label.

Associated with Gmail is the product of Google Contacts since we know that usually if someone is found within our Google Contacts, if we start typing in their name in the search bar or in the "CC," "BCC," or "to" field in the compose box, the name should hopefully easily appear for us. The format of Google Contacts has definitely changed over the last year and we could for awhile flip flop between two different views where the old view seemed to have a lot more functions. Also, the way to find Contacts from Gmail has changed where it used to be on the left side of Gmail and you used to click on Gmail and see the word Contacts appear for you. Now to find Contacts from Gmail is to locate 9 tiny boxes to the direct left of your profile picture on the upper right of the screen and then try to find the word "Contacts" and in that 9 tiny box are also ways to get to other Google products such as Blogger, Photos, Hangouts, Drive, Account (which will lead you to myaccount.google.com), Maps, and Calendar. Contacts URL is contacts.google.com so Google does have a nice habit of the URL for the product will normally be the name of the product but some products you do need to place a ".google." between the product name and the com and some other products such as Gmail, all you need to type into the URL box is gmail.com so the product name followed by the dot and then the com.

Gmail can also be the product that is full of different buttons and functions besides showing your emails. Recently there has been some changes to Google Tasks where that is no longer it's own URL but is integrated into Gmail so on the right side of Gmail you should even be seeing new buttons that are Google Tasks (which to me looks like a white line inside of a blue circle) along with two other products that still have its own URLs and can be used without Gmail and they are Google Keep (yellow square with a light-bulb outline) and Google Calendar (blue square with a white outline of the numbers 31).

Gmail is also the product that takes up most of my storage space and I keep trying to thin down my emails since my account is already up to 77% full and Gmail is taking up at least 7GB of the 15GB space. The types of emails that can cause the biggest dent in the storage are ones that have attachments/images in them. The Google Drive help center even suggests that you find emails that have attachments larger than "10M" to try to free up space in the storage, which is shared between three products which are Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos (future posts will talk about Google Drive and even Google Photos including mentioning some of the recent changes). The place I use to see which product is taking up my space and how much of it is https://drive.google.com/settings/storage?dgor=1, which will also tell you what type of plan you are on so for example personal consumer Google Accounts come with 15GB. G Suite domains can come with a different amount and also depends on what type of domain you have so Business, Education, Google Apps Legacy, and etc (https://support.google.com/a/answer/177064?hl=en).

Screenshot of what a Gmail inbox can look like and I made sure to check one email off so several more buttons can show on the top. As you can see the labels are on the left and the Google Tasks, Google Keep, and Google Calendar icons are on the right. You see also the settings icon and the input tools icon to the left of the Google Calendar icon.

Once you go to "settings", this is what it looks like and I have taken a screenshot to show more of the search box and which URL will be for this particular tab. You can also see the tiny 9 boxes and the question mark inside of a circle, which stands for 'support' and if you click on that you will be brought to a menu where you can submit feedback and if you click upon "help" a box will appear letting you search for help articles. If you click upon "training" you are brought over to the G Suite Learning Center article at https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9259748 even if you are not inside of a G Suite account. G Suite Learning Center does provide information about consumer accounts as well as G Suite accounts. If you are inside of a G Suite account, your Gmail will say G Suite in the upper right next to your profile picture.