Email is an important part of our everyday lives, and knowing how to use it properly can be extremely helpful. Google offers email, called Gmail, and it’s designed to be very user-friendly. Yet, there are some tips and tricks that you can learn that will make using Gmail easier.
In this article, we’re going to go over some of those basic Gmail tips and tricks, so you have a better understanding of how to use your Gmail account.
Getting Into Gmail
Getting into your Gmail account is the first step to being able to create and send emails. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to access your Gmail account:
- Go to “mail.google.com”
- This will take you to a sign-in screen. You can either use an account that you already have one or you can create an account. You can have multiple accounts.
- To create an account, click “Use Another Account” (if you already are signed in with another account) and then choose “Create an Account” at the bottom of the dialog box. If you aren’t already signed in and need to make an account, simply choose “Create an Account.”
After signing in, you’ll be taken to your Gmail inbox, where you’ll receive and send all your emails.
Creating and Sending Emails in Gmail
Now that you’re in your Gmail account, it’s time to talk about how to compose and send a Gmail message. Again, this is very easy to do because everything you need to compose an email is readily available.
To compose an email, go to the top left-hand corner of the screen where the pencil is located and click it.
This will open a dialog box or Gmail window at the bottom of the right-hand side of the screen. The compose window looks like the image below:
You’ll put the recipient in the “To:” line, and if you want to CC or BCC anyone, you can add them on those lines.
What’s the Difference Between CC and BCC, and Why Does It Matter?
The difference between CC and BCC is that CC means that the recipients can see everyone on the email list. BCC means that the recipients won’t see who else you sent the email to.
If you don’t want the other recipients to know who is getting your email, you’ll want to click BCC.
Then you can go ahead and type in your subject line and begin typing your important message. You’ll notice that when you type, Gmail will start filling in your sentences for you. If they fill it in with what you want to say, you can hit “Tab,” and the rest of the sentence will fill in. If you don’t want to fill in your sentence automatically, ignore it and keep typing.
Once you’ve got your message the way you want it, you can hit “Send.” If you close out your email by accident, you can find your written email in the “Drafts” section on the left-hand side option list.
Ready for another Gmail tip? If you have multiple emails you want to send that contain a lot of the same information, you can also easily create a template in Gmail to save some time. Simply go into your “Gmail Settings” < “See All Settings” < “Advanced.”
You can then scroll down in your Gmail settings until you see Templates and click on the circle marked enable. Now you can create an email template you can use to compose multiple emails containing the same basic information, making your Gmail experience even easier.
Scheduling Your Email to Send
If you want to compose your email but aren’t ready to send it right yet, you can schedule when your email will be sent.
- On the “Send” blue button on the bottom of the composing email page, click the arrow next to the button and click “Schedule Send.”
- Choose the date and time that you want the email to send.
- Once you’ve picked your day and time, click “Schedule Send,” and your message will be sent when you’ve chosen it to be sent.
Attaching a File
If you want to attach a file to your email, you can click the paperclip icon at the bottom of the email dialog box. By clicking the paperclip, it will open a new window that will show your files on your computer.
Find the file(s) that you want to attach and click “Open” to attach the file(s) to your email. Or you can drag and drop files into your email dialog box, and they will attach.
However, you need to be careful because the email won’t automatically send once you hit over 25MB of attachments. Gmail will then alert you that large files need to be shared using Google Drive, and once you hit, “OK” it will start uploading your large file to Google Drive and attaching it to your email.
Once you send the email, it will ask you what permissions you want on the file because it’s coming out of your Google Drive.
You can choose to give only the recipient of the email access to the file, which you can then decide if they can only view, comment, or edit the document. Alternatively, you can give access to anyone who has the link to the document.
Confidential Mode
Gmail users often overlook confidential Mode, but it is very important to understand how to use it. If you send an email with important and confidential information, you can set the email to expire after several days. You can also choose to create a passcode for the email by clicking “No SMS Passcode” or “SMS Passcode.”
This SMS passcode will require the recipient to input a passcode that they receive via text before viewing the unread emails.
Again, Confidential Mode is a great way to ensure that your information is being received only by the person you want it sent to, so it’s a great way to add security to your email.
Gmail is a great source for email because it’s extremely user-friendly. In addition, Gmail is so straightforward to use that anybody who can access Gmail can use it! To better understand how to use Gmail and for more in-depth Gmail tips and tricks, check out this video.
