Optimizing Gmail Settings for Productivity, Part 1

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The following slides covers optimizing your Gmail to increase productivity. To access the General Settings:1. Click on the gear button in your Gmail (located at mail.google.com)2. Click on ‘Settings’3. From the ‘General’ tab, you can access the following:

o Languageo Phone Numberso Maximum Page Sizeo External Contento Browser Connectiono Default Reply Behavioro Default Text Styleo Conversation Viewo Send and Archiveo Preview Paneo Stars

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1) Language● The language option lets you pick which language you compose emails in,

and depending on your preference, it’s easy to correspond in more than one tongue.

● If you enable the input tools, you can make all sort of magic happen, including handwriting input, transliteration from English to other languages, and using a virtual keyboard for special characters from Asian, Arabic, or Cyrillic alphabets.

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2) Phone Numbers● When you get an email containing a phone number, Gmail assumes you’d

like to be able to call it directly, either using Google Voice, or if you’re on your mobile device, using that.

● The setting here assumes a certain country code, and I have mine set to United States. Yours might differ, if you’re not in the US.

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3) Maximum Page Size● The maximum pages size allows you to set how many conversations you

see at one time, limiting scrolling, or encouraging it, depending on you setting.

● Mine are set to 50 conversations per page, and 250 contacts per page. Since I use search a lot in email, I rarely need to scroll all that much, especially in contacts. Your mileage may vary.

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4) External Content● Refers to images and commercial content such as ads from vendors in

your email.

● If you don’t want to see external content, you can always set it up so Gmail asks you before you see it.

● On a mobile device, you typically won’t see external content at all, due to the load times of pulling down images or large content.

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5) Browser Connection● My recommendation here is to always go for https, and use the Chrome

browser.

● If not, you’re not requiring Gmail to use a more secure connection to your email, which leaves you open for interference from that guy behind you at the coffee shop.

● Use http only, and you’re likely not the only one reading your email. Security is important. Use https whenever you can.

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6) Default Reply Behavior● Sometimes you will want reply to all as the default reply setting, like if

you’re operating in an enterprise environment, and you communicate with a team, and other times you want to just reply to one person. Either way, this is where you set the default for the reply behavior.

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7) Default Text Style● The default text style controls your visual pleasures when reading and

composing email. If you don’t do anything, email is displayed in a basic sans serif font. But, if you’re more likely to read and compose stuff in Tahoma, you can make that happen here. The same is true for text size, something that’s very helpful for the visually impaired, or younger kids, perhaps.

● Either way, you can control your experience, which is key. Remember, depending on the format of the email you get, these options may not be available, or may not be used - it depends on whether or not Gmail can control the incoming content.

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8) Conversation View● Instead of displaying each new response to an email as a separate entity,

Gmail displays it inline as a conversation, so you don’t have to remind yourself what it’s all about before responding, or search your inbox for the last email in the series. Gmail simply displays all email from a conversation together. If you haven’t tried it (although it’s the default in Gmail) you should give it a try right away.

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9) Send and Archive● If enabled, your option after replying to an email is now to send and

archive at once, with a swift return to the inbox. If disabled, you’ll have to decide what to do next as an extra step. You have the option to only send the email as well, which is handy for multiple responses to different people from one email (which, yes, happens a few times a week for me).

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10) Preview Pane● If you’re using the lab Preview Pane from the Gmail Labs, you’ll have the

ability to display email using a vertical or horizontal pane setup - much like in Outlook.

● This controls when the email you’re looking at becomes ‘read’, as in “not new” anymore. I have it set to immediately, but I don’t use the Preview Pane, so it probably doesn’t matter that much.

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11) Stars● The stars are ways of flagging your email. In Outlook, and many mobile

clients, you only have a flag on or off.

● You have lots of choices - they mean whatever you want them to mean, but I’ll share mine with you here. To apply a flag, or star, you simply keep clicking to mark the email from the list view, where there’s a blank outline of a star already, to cycle through the choices you’ve setup.

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