Chapter 8: Things to Know About Using Gmail

Keep in mind that in this chapter, I’m focusing entirely on using Gmail in a web browser. In the next chapter, I’ll look at accessing Gmail using a desktop email client such as Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird. With that in mind, let’s look at five things you absolutely need to know about Gmail to use it more effectively.

Searching for the Exact Message You Need

Gmail is a product of Google, after all, so it’s no shocker that it has excellent search capabilities. Unfortunately, many Google Search users just type a word or two into the search box and get good results, when they could get great results if they knew some advanced search operators. A similar situation exists with Gmail—most users simply search for a word or two, and they probably get good results, but if they learned a few advanced search operators, they could get great results.

So what’s a search operator? Basically, it’s just a word or symbol that modifies your search queries. There are oodles of search operators. Some of them are in your email headers, as shown in Table 8.1.

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Tip – Here are two ways in which Google Search and Gmail’s search are different. If you search Google and misspell a word, Google will suggest a correct spelling; Gmail, however, does not do so. Additionally, if you search Google for a word, Google will find that word and related plurals (searching for “dog” also brings up results with “dogs,” for instance); again, Gmail does not do so.

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Table 8.1  Search Operators for Email Headers

to:

Messages sent to you or someone else

to:me
to:Jans Carton to:jans@websanity.com

cc:

Messages CC’d to you or someone else

cc:me
cc:Jans Carton
cc:jans@websanity.com

bcc:

Messages you sent via
BCC to someone else (not those BCC’d to you)

bcc:jans@websanity.com

subject:

Words in the Subject

subject:Project A
subject:“Chapter 8”

from:

Messages sent to you by someone else

from:Jans Carton
from:jans@websanity.com

Other search operators are based on searching for attachments, or even the types of files that make up the attachments. Table 8.2 shows some of those search operators.

Other filenames you can search for include (this is by no means an exhaustive list):

• Movies—avi, mov, mp4, mpg, wmv

• Sound—wav, wmv

• Images—bmp, gif, jpg, png, tiff

• Documents—csv, odt, ppt, rtf, txt, xls

Table 8.2  Search Operators for Attachments

Google relies heavily on labels (which we’ll look at in the next section), and you can use search operators that target specific labels, as demonstrated in Table 8.3.

Table 8.3  Search Operators for Labels

You can also search by time, as you can see in Table 8.4. However, dates must always be expressed in yyyy/mm/dd format.

Table 8.4  Search Operators for Time

after:

After, but not including, the specified date

after:2008/12/17

before:

Before, but not including, the specified date

before:2008/12/17a

Things get really interesting, however, when you learn to construct more complex queries. Let’s start with Boolean search terms and the various symbols you can use to build powerful queries, as displayed in Table 8.5.

Table 8.5  Boolean Search Terms and Symbols You Can Use to Devise Complex Queries

AND

[space]

Jans AND Carton

OR

|

Jans OR Carton

NOT

–

Jans NOT Carton

“”

“Gmail address book”

()

subject:(Zoo PRSA)

{}

Now that you know all the information contained in the previous tables, let’s combine the various operators in Table 8.6 for some complex queries.

Table 8.6  Some Complex Queries and Their Meanings

Really, the best way to learn about searching Gmail is to practice and record the ones that work for you the best. If you use the Quick Links features from Gmail Labs (discussed in Chapter 7’s “Quick Links” section), you can save those searches and easily return to them later.

In fact, if you often search for a particular label, you can use your browser’s bookmarks to quickly return to it later. For instance, if I created a label named “Todo” and I wanted to quickly see all the messages to which I’ve given that label, I can just bookmark https://mail.google.com/a/heavymetalmassage.com/#label/todo (of course, change the domain name and label to fit your particular case).

Living with Labels

I discussed labels in Chapter 7’s “Labels” section, but I want to emphasize here just how important they are to Gmail. There are no folders in Gmail. None. Instead, Gmail uses labels to organize email, which are far better and more useful than folders. Why?

Suppose you receive an email from your coworker Bob about the Zoo project you’re doing in cooperation with the Yog-Sothoth firm. You have four folders set up in your email program: Bob, Work, Zoo Project, Yog-Sothoth. Into which folder do you file the message? After you pick one, that’s it—even though the email has to do with all four subjects, it can go into only one folder. If you want to find it in the future, you either have to remember which folder it’s in, or click one at a time on each folder, or search. The first requires a superhuman memory if you get a ton of mail, the second is silly, and the third can be dog slow on desktop clients.

If you use Gmail, you can assign as many labels as you’d like to a message. In the example in the previous paragraph, you could assign Bob, Work, Zoo Project, and Yog-Sothoth to the message. If you wanted to find it later, you could click any of those four labels, or search—and searching Gmail is fast. If you learn the search operators I just covered in the previous section, it’s even more efficient.

So learn to live with labels. They can be tremendously helpful. But, as I’ve discussed before (in Chapter 3’s “Molding Your Email Folder Structure into the One Used by Gmail” section), don’t go label crazy. With Gmail’s powerful and fast search, you may find that the fewer labels you use, the better. Before adding a label, first ask yourself if you absolutely need it. And don’t be afraid to remove labels down the road and consolidate. Instead of Work/PRSA, Work/Science Center, and Work/Zoo, just create a label titled Work and dump everything in there. After that, search becomes your friend. Try it—you may love it.

Filtering Messages Effectively

Filters were discussed in Chapter 7’s “Filters” section, where they were explained as the automated tasks that Gmail performs on your email before you ever see it. For instance, if you’re sick of stupid joke emails from your Uncle Gussie, you could set up a filter that sends any email that is from Gussie, and also has “joke” or “humor” in the subject, to the Trash so you’ll never even have to see it.

The “Filters” section of Chapter 7 focused on setting up filters. In this section, I’d like to talk about some uses for filters. To begin with, let’s understand what aspects of an email are filterable. You can search for the following criteria and then use them to create your filters:

• From—Can be a full name (Jans Carton), part of a name (Jans), an email address (jans@websanity.com), part of an email address (websanity.com), or “me.”

• To—Can be a full name (Jans Carton), part of a name (Jans), an email address (jans@websanity.com), part of an email address (websanity.com), or “me.”

• Subject—You can search for an exact phrase by using quotation marks (“blogs to wikis”).

• Has the Words—You can search for an exact phrase by using quotation marks (“blogs to wikis”).

• Doesn’t Have—You can search for an exact phrase by using quotation marks (“blogs to wikis”).

• Has Attachment—A check box you can toggle.

To make sure your search criteria are correct, click Test Search and review the results. If they’re what you want, click Next Step. On the next screen you choose the actions you’d like to perform on messages that match your criteria. Those actions are the following, any of which you can check:

• Skip the Inbox (Archive It)—You won’t see it in your Inbox; instead, it goes into All Mail. This is a good box to check along with others in this list.

• Mark as Read—If you check this along with Skip the Inbox, it’s archived and won’t stick out, because it won’t be bold or listed as unread.

• Star It—If it’s important or needs action, star it!

• Apply the Label—Choose an existing label or create a new one. This action, when combined with Skip the Inbox, is equivalent to automatically filtering into folders with other email programs. A very common two-fer.

• Forward It To—Enter an email address to which you’d like the message to go; don’t forget that you can create email lists so that you can enter one address that sends it to several people (covered in Chapter 6’s “Email Addresses” section).

• Delete It—For the worst offenders.

• Never Send It to Spam—This makes sure that the important email from your significant other or boss never gets accidentally dumped into Spam by a mistake in Gmail’s antispam technology.

After making your choices, click Create Filter to do just that. Next to that button is a check box labeled Also Apply Filter to # Conversations Below, where # is the number of conversations that match your filter’s search criteria. Most of the time you’re going to want to check that box because it will apply your filter’s actions to email that has already arrived, thus making sure that your mail is nicely organized.

With the filter process in mind, here are a few of my favorite filters. What’s shown in Table 8.7 is there to give you ideas, but you can search Google for others. And, of course, the best way to find a filter that works for you is to experiment.

Table 8.7  Some of My Favorite Gmail Filters

One final note about filters: after you’ve created one, you may want to add on to it later. For instance, suppose you create a filter that takes any mail from truthout.org, eff.org, or maal.org and labels it LIST/Politics. If you view your list of filters (by going to Settings, Filters, or by clicking Create a Filter and then Show Current Filters), you’ll see that it looks like this:

Matches: from:(truthout.org OR from:eff.org)Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label “LIST/Politics”

If you want to add another from:—this one for moabolition.org—you would click Edit and change it to this:

Matches: from:(truthout.org OR from:eff.org OR from:moabolition.org)Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label “LIST/Politics”

And so on. These filters can get quite long—one of mine is 25 addresses and counting, and I’ve never had an issue. But what you may not know is that you can introduce other criteria that don’t match the original set.

Suppose I want to find email sent to ydgsl@yahoogroups.com and also apply the LIST/Politics label to it. I could create a brand new filter for to: ydgsl@yahoogroups.com, but that’s kind of silly because I already have a perfectly good filter in place that labels mail with LIST/Politics. Instead, I edit the already existing filter so that it now reads this way:

Matches: from:(truthout.org OR from:eff.org OR from:moabolition.org OR to:ydgsl@yahoogroups.com)Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label “LIST/Politics”

Even though the Matches line starts with from: and everything following is in parentheses, you can still put a to: inside the parentheses, and the filter will work just find and dandy. In fact, you can sneak a from: or a subject: in there without an issue.

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Warning – You must use OR between your filter criteria. Not “or” and not “Or.” It must be OR. Google says.

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Speeding Things Up with Keyboard Shortcuts

Gmail is eminently usable with a mouse, but if you learn the key commands that Google thoughtfully provides, you can use Gmail far faster and more efficiently.

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Tip – Before you can use the advice in this section, you have to have turn on keyboard shortcuts in Gmail’s Settings, a process I mentioned in Chapter 7’s “Keyboard Shortcuts” section.

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I’m not going to go through all the keyboard shortcuts that Gmail possesses, because you can find the complete list at the Gmail Help Center, at https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594. In addition, I highly recommend the printable cheat sheet that you can find at http://r.evhead.com/hodgepodge/gmail-shortcuts.html. It’s good.

Table 8.8 lists some of the shortcuts that I use all time, so I recommend them wholeheartedly. In addition, check out the links I just gave you, because you are sure to find others that are just as useful.

Table 8.8  Some of My Favorite Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

Remember, these are just a few of the many keyboard shortcuts that you can use. Check out the links I provided at the beginning of this section for more. One final thought: it’s not vital that you learn all the shortcuts, as there probably isn’t a person alive who has them all memorized. Instead, learn the ones that will be of most use to you.

Securing Your Email

Email is one of the primary ways bad guys get into Windows boxes, which are still the majority of desktop computers out there. Fortunately, Google has placed several smart protections into Gmail in an effort to minimize the security risks of its email.

Checking for Viruses

Google has virus checking built in to Gmail, which is a very good thing (it’s not so much necessary for Linux or Mac OS X boxes, but it’s really nice for the Windows users). Attachments you send and receive are scanned for malware every time you open the message containing the attachment.

If Google finds a virus in a message sent to you, it will try to clean the file so that you can still use it, but if the file can’t be cleaned, it’s off limits to you. Again, a good thing. If Google has a problem scanning the file, for whatever reason, it will notify you with a small alert. At that point, you can wait or go ahead and download the file at your own risk. That’s not a good idea, in my opinion, unless you know you have really good antivirus protection on your PC.

If Google finds a virus in a message you’re trying to send, it displays an alert to you, but it won’t clean the file. That’s up to you. Google does give you an option to Remove Attachment and Send, but that may not be what you want because the attachment may be vitally important to the message. Hopefully, though, a virus-laden attachment isn’t vitally important to the message.

Even with the virus scanning, however, Google doesn’t allow certain file types to be sent or received at all, including (but not limited to):

• .exe

• .dll

• .ocx

• .com

• .bat

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Note – If you don’t know what those file types are, check out Wikipedia for each of the filename extensions, or go to a massive list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_formats_(alphabetical), or check out the enormous database at http://filext.com.

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If you try, you’ll see the following error message: “This is an executable file. For security reasons, Gmail does not allow you to send this type of file.”

You might think that you can just zip up the attachment and sneak it past Google that way, but that won’t work. Google scans the compressed file, figures out that it contains a verboten file type, and puts up a stop sign. Other compression formats, such as TAR, TGZ, Z, and GZ, don’t work either. For some weird reason, though, RAR is allowed.

Industrious Gmail users have figured out a few ways to get around the restriction against sending executable files, however. I’m not saying that you should do any of these, although some are a lot safer than others, but here are a few ideas:

• Rename the file extension from .exe to .123, or from .bat to .bat.removeme. Of course, tell your recipients in your email message that they need to change the extension.

• Zip the file, then zip the Zip file and password-protect the container ZIP file.

• Use compression software that creates RAR files. Google is your friend.

• Perhaps the easiest solution is using something like YouSendIt (http://www.yousendit.com), Box.net (http://www.box.net), or any of the others listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-click_hosting. If you don’t know about them, check them out—you’ll find them quite useful, and they complement Gmail well.

Stopping Image Spam

Gmail does an excellent job detecting spam, but a few can get through. One of the most annoying types of spam is image spam, in which a spammer has nothing but a picture in the body of the email. By using an image, spammers hope that it will be harder for Gmail’s antispam tools to detect their come-ons. Here’s a good way to make sure none of that junk gets into your Inbox.

Create a filter with these criteria:

• Has the Words: type “multipart/related.gif”

• Check the box next to Has Attachment

For the filter’s actions, use these:

• Skip the Inbox (Archive It)

• Apply the Label: Image Spam

You may get false positives, which is why you’re applying a label to the message. Check the messages in that label every once in a while to make sure there’s nothing in there that you want, and also to delete junk in there permanently.

Another way to help make spam more obvious when you look at the list of conversations in the Image Spam label is to use the Personal Level Indicators. To turn them on, in Gmail, go to Settings, General, Personal Level Indicators, and select Show Indicators. After you do so, a single right-pointing angle quotation mark (›) appears in front of messages in which your email address is in the To or CC field, and a right-pointing double angle quotation mark (») appears in front of messages sent only to you.

If you see a message that has a › or » in front of it, it’s less likely that it’s spam and more likely that’s it’s legit, but if you see a message without either symbol in front of it, it’s more likely that it’s spam and less likely that it’s legit.

Finding Out Who’s Accessing Your Gmail Account

If you think someone may have hacked into your Gmail account, you now have a way to tell, thanks to a feature recently added by Google. Scroll to the bottom of the main page, and you’ll see text that says something like this:

This account is open in 1 other location at this IP (76.211.85.91).
Last account activity: 1 minute ago.

This lets you know if another computer is accessing your Gmail account. In my case, it’s perfectly okay that my account is open in two locations at my IP address, because I’m looking at Gmail in two browsers (I’m writing a book on the subject, after all!).

If you want to know more, click the Details link. On that page, you’ll see all recent activity, including the type of access (browser, POP, IMAP, or SMTP), the IP address of the accessing device, and the time of access. If one of the items listed freaks you out, click the Sign Out All Other Sessions button to do just that. In a flash, you’re the only one accessing your account.

And then, immediately change your password. As in right now!

Preventing Phishing

Google is now checking any email that says it comes from paypal.com or ebay.com using a technology known as DomainKeys. If the email doesn’t come from either of those two domains, it’s rejected silently, behind the scenes, and you’ll never even know a scammer was trying to trick you. That’s fantastic, and a great way to protect users.

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Note – Don’t know anything about DomainKeys? Hie thee to Wikipedia, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys.

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Limiting How Many Emails You Can Send

To prevent spam and abuse, Google limits how many emails you can send a day. If you go over that limit, your account is temporarily suspended from sending mail.

If you’re using the Standard Edition of Google Apps, you can send email to up to 500 addresses outside your domain each day. If you use the Premier or Education Editions of Google Apps, you can send mail to up to 2,000 addresses outside your domain each day. These email addresses can be anywhere in To, CC, and BCC fields.

What if you’re an administrator? How do you send email to all your users if the total number of users is greater than the number of addresses to which you’re allowed to send mail? Google suggests that you create multiple accounts, such as Admin1 and Admin2. If you do that, each account can send 500 messages, for a total of 1,000 (if you’re using the Standard Edition; the number is larger if you’re using the Premier or Education Edition).

Solving Common Problems

As with all things in life, you’re going to find little gotchas. Here are a few of those, and their solutions.

What the Heck Is a “Lockdown in Sector 4”?

If you have the misfortune to find that you can’t access Gmail any longer, and now you get a web page that says there’s been a “Lockdown in sector 4!” you were probably doing something that triggered alarms at Gmail. For instance, you may have been doing one of the following:

• Using a third-party program to access Gmail that didn’t behave. In particular, software that turns Gmail into a file storage system can cause problems, as well as programs that repeatedly log in to Gmail.

• A huge amount of POP-based email activity (grabbing or deleting) in a short period of time.

• Sending lots of bounced, invalid email messages (often a sign of a spammer).

• Continuous failed attempts to access your Gmail account.

No matter what the cause, you have three choices:

• Wait a while. Usually within 24 hours your access is restored. During this time you can still grab your email via IMAP or POP with a desktop client (for more on that, check out the next chapter, which is all about that subject).

• Try to figure out what you were doing that may have caused the problem, and disable or uninstall that program or activity.

• Follow the provided link to fill out a form and request that Google take a look at your problem.

Receiving a lockdown in sector 4 can be tremendously irritating. I should know, because I’ve received one myself. But be patient, give it time, figure out what may have been causing it, and all should be restored soon enough.

How Do I Troubleshoot Gmail Problems?

If you’re having trouble accessing Gmail at all—the page is blank, or it never finishes loading, for instance—first check your network connection. Make sure everything is working correctly when it comes to the Net.

If that all looks fine, then try the following, in no particular order:

• Clear your web browser’s cache and cookies (you’d be surprised how often that fixes things).

• Open Gmail in its Basic HTML (in other words, nonfancy) view, at https://mail.google.com/mail/h/. After that loads, try switching to the Standard View.

• Open Gmail in Mobile View, at http://m.gmail.com.

• If Google says that it doesn’t like your web browser, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t, you can always bypass the check that Gmail does to make sure your browser will work. Go to https://mail.google.com/gmail?nocheckbrowser and see if that displays.

• Finally, check out Gmail Known Issues at https://mail.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=known_issues.cs&hl=en&topic=12878, which contains problems and solutions in the following categories: Logging In, Chat and Contacts, Composing and Reading Mail, and POP and IMAP.

Conclusion

In this chapter I’ve looked at five things you should know about if you’re using the web-based version of Gmail: search, labels, filters, keyboard shortcuts, and security. The more you can learn about each, the more effectively you’ll be able to use Gmail. In the next chapter, we’ll examine how to integrate Gmail into desktop and mobile email programs. Some of the things we’ve learned in this chapter will apply, but there’s a ton of new information, too. In the same way that Gmail is constantly improving and adding new and exciting features, there’s always more to learn!

Further Reading

There’s always more to learn, so here are some resources that you might find handy if you want to learn more about Gmail:

• Overviews and high points

• Gmail overview: https://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/gmail.html

  10 reasons to use Gmail: https://mail.google.com/mail/help/about.html

  Getting Started Guide: https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=90877&topic=12925

  Email Quick Facts: https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=60761&topic=11543

• Google Apps for Admins

• Help Topics: https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/topic.py?topic=9202

  All Help topics on one page: https://mail.google.com/support/?fulldump=1

  Email Switch Guide: https://google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=48237

• Google Apps for Users Help Topics: https://mail.google.com/support/?ctx=ausers&hl=en

• Interactive Video Guides

• Gmail Welcome: https://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews/welcome/topicWelcome/page05.html

  Gmail tutorials: https://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews/welcome/topicMail/index.html

• Gmail videos from the Google Apps YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8A0C9023238F7724

• Video product overviews and tours

• Overview of Gmail in Google Apps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JJDugn4RoQ

  User testimonials: https://mail.google.com/mail/help/yourstory.html

• PDFs for training support staff

• Login: https://services.google.com/apps/training/user_support/Mail/MailUserSupportModule2LoginIssues.pdf

  Reading and Sending: https://services.google.com/apps/training/user_support/Mail/MailUserSupportModule3ReadingAndSending.pdf

  Delivery: https://services.google.com/apps/training/user_support/Mail/MailUserSupportModule4DeliveryIssues.pdf

  POP: https://services.google.com/apps/training/user_support/Mail/MailUserSupportModule6POPIssues.pdf

• Discussion groups

• Gmail Help Discussion Group: https://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion

  Gmail-Users: https://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Users

  APIs: https://groups.google.com/group/google-apps-apis

• The Official Gmail Blog: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com

• News and Announcements: https://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.html

• Known Issues

• https://mail.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=known_issues.cs

  Google Apps Frequently Reported Issues: https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/request.py?contact_type=known_issues

• Support options: https://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=contact_policy

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