LIS 271 Group Project 2LIS 271 Group Project 2

Email for Seniors, Part 3:Additional Features of Gmail

Corey Ferguson

Email for Seniors, Part 3:Additional Features of Gmail

Corey Ferguson

1. Archiving

• So, you’ve opened and read an email. Now what?

• You can keep it in your inbox; you can delete it; or you can clean up your inbox by archiving it.

• What makes archiving different than deleting?

• Archiving is a feature of Gmail that lets you remove a message from your inbox without deleting it.

• You will still be able to easily find your archived messages.

• When an item is archived, it is moved from the inbox to “All Mail.”

• The following slides will teach you how to archive your messages.

Here’s what your inbox looks like with three already-read items in it. If you don’t want to permanently delete them, archive them to “All Mail.”

First, click the box to the left of each message you’d like to archive. A check will appear, and each item will be highlighted.

Then, just click on the “Archive” button above the messages, and they will disappear from your inbox.

To see the messages that you’ve archived, just click on the “All Mail” link on the left of the page. “All Mail” contains just that: all of your messages, except for the ones

that have been deleted.

2. Labels

• Gmail’s labels are a simple and useful way to organize and sort your messages.

• Unlike traditional email “folders,” several labels can be applied to one message and a labeled message can be in many “places” at once.

Gmail automatically sets up a few labels for you. You can view a couple of them on the left side of the page. To see the rest, and to manage or create labels, click on

the link that tells you how many more labels you have hidden, in this case, 2.

There are several paths you can take to create and manage your labels. Clicking on the “manage labels” link from the previous slide will take you to the Labels section of the Settings page. System labels are the basics (Inbox, Trash, etc.). Below that, you

will see the labels that you can adjust to fit your sorting needs and preferences.You can pick which labels to show on the left side of the main page, remove

unwanted labels, and create new ones (red arrow).

To create a new label from the Settings page, just type in whatever you would like the label to be called and click “Create.” For this example, we’re creating an

“Appointments” label. Once you’ve created the label, it will appear in the list with the other labels.

Another way to create a label is to choose the “Create new label” link from the main page.

Once you click on the “Create new label” link, you will see a box pop up on the screen, instructing you to enter the name of your new label.

For this example, we’re creating a “Family” label. Once you’re happy with the name of your label, just click “OK.”

Once you have created your labels, you can start applying them to emails. To label a message in your inbox, first select the checkbox next to the message and click on

the “Labels” button above the messages. (You will notice that you can also manage/create labels by clicking on this button.)

Then, select whichever label(s) you would like to apply to the message. Since emails sometimes fit into more than one category, you can select any number of labels for an email. Once selected, a will appear next to the label name, in this

case “Family,” and the email will be automatically placed in the “Family” label while still remaining in the inbox.

If you would like to label a message and also move it out of the inbox, select the email, and then click the “Move to” button above the messages. At this point, you can only click on one label. Once selected, your email will be relocated from the

inbox to the label of choice.

In this example, we’ve moved a message to the “Personal” label. You can see the notification above the inbox. (You can also see that our previously labeled item is

still in the inbox, with the “Family” label next to it [red arrow].)

To view the messages in a label, simply click the label name on the left of the main page. Here, we’ve clicked on the “Family” label.

As we’ve noted, many labels can be applied to one message. You can see below, though, that it can be difficult to distinguish the labels on the message because of

the small font. There is a solution, though!

Gmail lets you assign different colors to labels, making them more easily to distinguish. To color a label, first roll your cursor over the small box to the left of the

label name on the main page. You will see a small arrow appear.

Next, click down on the arrow and you will see a small color palette. You can choose whichever color you would like. You can even coordinate colors to the label type, for

example, coloring a “Finances” label green.

Once you have selected colors for your labels, the boxes next to the label names will be shaded, as will the labels next to the email messages. Customize away!

3. Searching

• Imagine that you’d like to look up an old email. You know that you did not delete it, but you can’t remember if you labeled it and your “All Mail” is too large to look through for one specific email.

• Gmail’s searching feature enables you to use the information you have to easily find the email message you seek.

The search box is located on the top of the screen, no matter which section of Gmail you are in.

Type in your search terms and click “Search Mail.” Here, we’re searching for “gmail.”

Our search has returned all of the emails that have “gmail” in the message, whether it is from Gmail or has the word in the subject or body of the message.

As noted, you can perform a search from any page in Gmail. If you know that you’ve given a message a specific label, you can go to the label and search only those

messages with that label. Imagine that your granddaughter Karen sent you an email that you would like to find. If you click on the “Family” label on the left of the page and then enter your search terms next to “label:family” (which will automatically

appear), the search will be restricted only to emails you’ve labeled “Family.”

To conduct a more advanced email search, click on “Show search options” next to the Search area on the top of the page.

The “Search Options” box will appear on the top of the page. You can then enter or select any field you wish in order to narrow your search (who sent the email, what

the subject was, when it was sent, etc.).

• These are some of the most common and useful features of Gmail.

• Gmail offers several other features, not limited to email. Continue to explore and play around with it.

• If you have any questions about the service or any other features, you can visit Gmail’s “Help” section or just ask your librarian!

• We hope that you enjoy this new way of keeping in touch with your friends and family!