gmail

I logged in today and have just noticed a little “head and shoulders” icon for each message that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there yesterday:

Clicking on it usefully shows other recent messages from the sender of that particular email. Pretty neat. Anyone noticed any other new features?

I’m a pretty regular user of Gmail, as my previous posts indicate. However, every now and again I get a bit bored of it and try something out just for a change.

I’ve started to notice, though, that almost every time I stop using it and try something else, they add a neat new feature that brings me back! They recently added IMAP, which kept me back there for a while. I drifted off somewhere else again after a few days and now they’ve added label colouring

It’s a nice feature and really helps you quickly identify your labelled messages in your Inbox. So, that should keep me back on Gmail for a coupla weeks or so.

So, are Gmail monitoring my use of their service and adding features specifically to encourage me back? Well, it’s a nice thought…

I’ve noticed since yesterday that Gmail has been updated. It definitely has a “snappier” feel to it, so I guess they’ve implemented the message pre-loading that’s been mentioned on their blog. There also seems to be a slight colour change to various sections (i.e. the message labels when, say, archiving an email) and the popup when hovering the mouse over a contact in the email list has changed. I also notice I’ve now got an “Older version” link at the top of the page.

It’s curious that they haven’t notified users with their usual “New features” link. Perhaps they’re still rolling out.

Ironically, it’s now quicker to use the web app version of Gmail than it is to use their recent IMAP implementation through Thunderbird!

It’s good to see that Google are still developing Gmail. Who knows? One day we might even lose the Beta tag

The one final thing I’ve been wanting from Gmail has finally arrived - IMAP support! IMAP allows you to synchronise your email across different clients. So, for instance, if I’m reading a message from my Gmail account using Thunderbird and then delete it, it’s also deleted when I look at my Gmail using the Web client.

This really has changed everything for me and I can now see myself using only Gmail as my primary email account. At the moment, it only seems to be available for the Google Apps version (i.e. Gmail for domains), but I assume it will be rolled out to all accounts eventually.

Here’s a screenshot of the new Settings page:

Well done Google

Good news for everyone struggling with the “paltry” 2.9Gb Google give us for Gmail - they’re upping the storage for “everyone”, but don’t appear to be letting on by how much:

In April 2005, we started increasing Gmail storage as part of our “Infinity+1″ storage plan. At that time, we realized we’d never reach infinity, but we promised to keep giving Gmail users more space as we were able. That said, a few of you are using Gmail so much that you’re running out of space, so to make good on our promise, today we’re announcing we are speeding up our counter and giving out more free storage.

I’m intrigued by people who’re near the storage limit with their accounts. I consider myself a pretty heavy email user and I’m only at around 400Mb. Are they backing up their entire photographic collection in their accounts? (From one of the comments on the original article, that might not be far from the truth!).

Read the rest of the post here.