Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Essential Gmail 5

Sending Email 6

Formatting Your Email 7

Saving Drafts 8

Spellchecking Your Email 8

Sending Attachments 9

Setting a Vacation Response 10

Receiving Email 11

Archiving Email 12

Starring Email 12

Filtering Messages 13

Deleting Messages 15

Searching Your Email 15

Advanced Searching 16

Checking Sent Email 17

Creating Contacts 18

Sending Mail to Contacts 19

Creating Groups of Contacts 20

Editing a Contact 20

Using Labels 21

Reading Your Buzz 21

Commenting on Buzz 22

Getting Buzz in Your Inbox 23

Posting Some Buzz 24

Posting Some Buzz via Email 25

Using Chat 25

Contents Starting a Chat Session 25

Using Emoticons in Chat 27

Using Gmail Labs 27

2 Signing Up for Gmail 29

Using an Acceptable Browser 30

Creating a Gmail Account 31

Signing In to Gmail 36

Getting a Tour of Gmail 37

Getting Email 41

Replying to Email 43

Going Mobile 44

Setting Your Picture 48

Creating a Profile 51

3 Composing Your Mail 55

Gmail’s Capabilities 55

Composing Email 55

Spellchecking Your Email 56

Adding Cc’s and Bcc’s 57

Setting Text Size 58

Bolding, Italicizing, and Underlining Text 59

Setting Fonts 61

Creating Bulleted and Numbered Lists 62

Indenting Text 64

Sending Links in Email 65

Sending Plain Text 66

Working Offline 66

Setting Out of Office or Vacation Responses 71

Saving a Draft of Your Mail 73

Sending Attachments 73

4 Reading Your Mail 75

Working in the Inbox 75

Reading Mail 75

Searching Your Mail 77

Displaying Only Unread Mail 78

Deleting Mail 80

Replying to Mail 81

Reading Your Sent Mail 82

Starring Mail 83

Handling Gmail Conversations 84

Forwarding Mail 86

Archiving Mail 87

Reporting Spam 88

Checking Your Mail 88

Muting Conversations 89

Filtering Your Mail 90

Editing or Deleting a Filter 92

5 Organizing People Using Contacts and Groups 95

All About Contacts 95

Working with Contacts 95

Creating a Contact 98

Emailing a Contact from a Contact Page 99

Emailing a Contact Using Autocomplete 99

Moving Contacts from All Contacts to My Contacts 100

Editing a Contact 101

Deleting a Contact 102

Setting a Contact’s Photo 103

Deleting Duplicate Contacts 106

Searching Contacts 107

Importing Contacts 108

Creating a .csv File 109

Using Existing Groups 111

Creating a Group 112

Emailing a Group 113

Deleting a Group 114

6 Organizing Gmail Using Labels and Tasks 115

Using Labels 115

Applying Labels to Messages 116

Removing Labels from Messages 117

Creating New Labels 118

Sorting Mail by Labels 120

Editing Labels 121

Organizing Labels 122

Deleting Labels 123

Changing Label Colors 124

Searching Using Labels 125

Moving Mail Between Labels 127

Adding Multiple Labels to a Message 127

Using Tasks 128

Creating a Task 130

Create Subtasks 131

Checking Off Tasks 132

Moving a Task 133

Printing Tasks 134

7 Getting Some Buzz in Gmail 135

Starting the Buzz 136

Following People in Buzz 137

Reading Some Buzz 139

Commenting on Buzz 139

Editing Your Comments 142

Deleting Your Comments 143

Liking Posts 144

Emailing Posts 145

Using Buzz with Mobile Phones 146

Reading Every Post from a Particular Person 147

Searching Buzz 148

Muting Buzz Posts 149

Blocking Posters 150

Seeing Who You’re Following 151

Finding More People to Follow 152

“Unfollowing” People 153

Reporting Abuse 153

8 Posting Your Buzz 155

All About Posting Buzz 155

Writing Some Buzz 155

Making Posts Public 157

Making Posts Private 158

Replying Privately to Posts (@ Replies) 159

Getting Buzzed in Your Inbox 160

Editing Your Posts 162

Posting by Email 163

Posting Privately by Email 164

Getting to Know Your Followers 166

Posting Links to Online Articles to Buzz 166

Posting Photos to Buzz 169

Adding Captions to Your Photos 171

Keeping Your Photos Private 172

Posting Videos to Buzz 173

9 Using Chat 175

How Chat Enhances the Gmail Experience 175

Displaying a Chat Status 175

Displaying a Custom Chat Status 177

Posting Your Chat Status on Buzz 179

Making Your Chat Status on Buzz Private 180

Adding People to Your Chat List 181

Getting Approval to Chat with Someone 181

Approving Someone Else’s Chat Invitations 182

Starting a Chat 182

Chatting with Someone 183

Chatting in Free-standing Windows 185

Using Emoticons in Chats 186

Ending Chat Sessions 187

Chatting in a Group 188

Blocking People 189

Adding Videos to a Chat Session 189

Installing Video and Voice Chat 191

Using Chat History 192

Turning Off Chat History 193

10 Advanced Gmail 195

Using Gmail Labs 195

Turning Off Labs in an Emergency 196

Adding Google Gadgets 197

Authenticating Mail from Known Senders 198

Using Custom Keyboard Shortcuts 199

Changing the Default Text Styling 200

Adding a Google Calendar 201

Coordinating Google Docs 202

Hiding Inbox Labels 204

Forwarding Mail Automatically 205

Using Your Email Program with POP 207

Using Your Email Program with IMAP 208

Troubleshooting Gmail 209

I Can’t Get into My Account 209

My Messages Are Missing 211

My Messages Are Not Being Downloaded by POP or IMAP 211

Chat Doesn’t Appear in Gmail 212

Attachments Don’t Download 213

I Get a Message About My Browser’s “Cookie Functionality” 214

Index 215

About the Author

Steven Holzner is the award-winning author of more than 100 books, specializingin online topics like Google Buzz. He’s been a contributing editor of PC Magazine and has specialized in online computing for many years. His books have sold more than 2.5 million copies and have been translated into 18 languages. Steve graduated from MIT and earned his PhD at Cornell. He’s been a very popular member of the faculty at both MIT and Cornell, teaching thousands of students over the years. He also runs his own software company and teaches weeklong classes to corporate programmers around the country.