The Occidental Weekly

Love it or hate it, we're all stuck using Gmail to access our Oxy e-mail accounts. It took a while - and some serious hassles - to transition the entire school from Microsoft Outlook to Google Apps, but at this point there's no going back: All the old e-mail accounts have been deleted. However, the Gmail interface is different from most other e-mail programs, and it can take a little getting used to. But if you take the time to learn the tricks and nuances of Gmail, it can prove to be a quick and efficient program. Whether you're using Gmail reluctantly or lovingly, these tips should help make dealing with your Oxy e-mail (or any Gmail account) easier.

One useful feature of Gmail is its easily accessible archiving function. In traditional e-mail programs, when you're done with an e-mail, you delete it, which sends it to the trash. After about 30 days of being in the trash, it is permanently deleted. You can still do this in Gmail (the delete button is in the top row), but Gmail was designed around the concept of archiving e-mails. The idea is that Gmail gives you enough space (in the case of Oxy e-mail accounts, around 7.2 GB) so that you never have to delete anything.

Instead of deleting, you can simply click the check box next to your e-mails and click the "Archive" button on the top toolbar. Archiving e-mails removes them from your inbox but doesn't permanently delete them. The e-mails are out of your way and you don't have to see them again if you don't need to, but they are still searchable using the Google search bar at the top. The Google search within Gmail is efficient and useful in finding something important that you may have archived.

However, remember that if you get an e-mail that you think contains a virus or spyware, you should still immediately and permanently delete it. On that note, Gmail deals with spam a lot better than the old Outlook Web Access system did. With Gmail, you get a lot less spam in your inbox because the Google team quickly adapts its spam-fighting algorithms as soon as new spam data is released.

When you do get spam, you can and should click the "report spam" button to help Google block that type of spam from going forward. It is important to check your spam folder every once in a while - legitimate messages do sometimes get caught, and Gmail deletes spam after 30 days, whether you check it or not.

Another useful aspect of Gmail is the use of "labels" instead of folders. In Gmail, labels serve multiple functions. You can create a label and apply it to an e-mail, in which case it acts like a traditional e-mail folder. You can do this by creating a label and dragging an e-mail to the label on the left-hand sidebar.

However, you can also simply apply labels to messages, which leaves them in your inbox (or archived), in which case they act as another way to categorize and organize your messages.

Unlike folders, you can apply multiple labels to an e-mail, and you can color-code labels to make it easier to distinguish e-mails at a glance. Clicking on a label on the side will show you all messages with that label (whether you "moved" the e-mail to that label or just applied the label and left the message where it was).

Gmail also offers some cool options when it comes to dealing with attachments. Like all other e-mail programs, it lets you download attachment files to your computer, but Gmail also allows you to preview attachments in your browser. This allows you to see a file without having to save it to your hard drive (or the hard drive of a public computer). To do it, click the "View as HTML" option next to the attachment. You can also open attachments in Google docs, which can be helpful if you're a Google docs user or if you just want to make a quick edit to the file.

Digging around in the settings for Gmail allows you to modify a lot of things, but if you want even greater customization options and you use Firefox, you can get the extension "Better Gmail 2." This add-on provides a lot of neat little tweaks, such as highlighting messages when you scroll over them, or having the Gmail icon display how many messages you have in your inbox. It also lets you eliminate user elements that you may not like, such as the chat box or spam count.

Another cool but little known feature of Gmail is that it has a handy task/to do list function, hidden away at the bottom of the left hand column. If you click "tasks," the link right under "contacts," you get a bar that lets you create lists with tasks or items that you can check off when done. It hides right under your e-mail, so it's easy to refer to.

It took me awhile, but I've finally come around to liking Gmail. For me, the hardest parts to adjust to were the lack of a preview pane (where you could see the first part of an e-mail message when selected) and the way Gmail takes responses and threads them as conversations.

While these, unfortunately, do not seem to be things that can be modified, the advantages of Gmail definitely seem to outweigh the cons. Gmail is much quicker than Outlook was, its spam filtering is better and it's a lot easier to find e-mails that you're looking for. All these little nuances and extras are just icing on the cake.

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