Five Gmail hacks that you probably didn’t know

With more than a fourth of the world’s email market share, it is reasonably fair to assume that you might be using one. Apart from its easy-to-use interface, what also powers Gmail is the ubiquitous Google Sign-in capability now available with every online sign-up forms.

To make use of Gmail even better, we are going to show you five feature hacks (might even help you to secure your account) to give your more control of your mailbox.

• Infinite Email IDs linked to one MailBox
  What would you do if you need more similar looking email addresses for your online accounts or team members. You needn’t go through the arduous process of signing up again. All you need to do is add a “+” sign to your existing email address & voila, it gives you a different email address linked to the same mailbox.
  As you would notice from the image below, we automatically created a new ID “[email protected]”, by simply adding a “+1” to the existing email ID – “[email protected]”.

Similarly we can create as many email aliases, by just appending any alphanumeric character after “+” sign. e.g. +sales, +hr, +delhi, +mumbai, +new1, etc.

All of these email ID aliases would still point to the same original mailbox before the “+” sign. So, you would receive all emails sent to aliases in your original email box itself.

However, to send emails from the alias, you would have to add the Alias, under “Settings > Accounts and Import > Send email as: ” section. Just add the alias you wish to use, as we did here for: Cyberyog Technologies (plus one) <[email protected]>

Once this is set, you can now choose the “sender” email address, while composing the email, as shown below:

You can also organise emails received on the Alias accounts, by using the Labels feature of Gmail. Just create a mail filter (under Settings) for incoming mail to sort your emails to reach their proper Label destination, as shown below.

VOILA. Now, you have a fully functioning email account, with the same original email ID, but with cool filters & labels. Try setting one from your existing Gmail account & see how it works like magic!

• Delegate email use without sharing the password
  You could easily add team members or friend use your email for specific purposes, without losing out on the security of your mailbox by sharing the password. It also saves the trouble of sharing OTP if the Gmail account is secured with two-factor authentication (2FA).

Under “Settings > Accounts and Import > Grant access to your account, simply add another Gmail account to allow sending & receiving emails on your behalf.

• Track use of your Gmail sessions
  If you would like to know who all have access to your Gmail account & where all your account might be in use, in case you feel someone has unauthorised access to your mail. Just scroll to the bottom of the page on which your Inbox displays, and click on the “Details” link on the bottom right (see image)

It would give you a full record of all the active sessions for the email account. You can click on “Sign out of all other Gmail web sessions” to remove any unknown use of your mail account from anywhere.

• Undo emails sent by mistake
  If you have sent an email in a hurry or by mistake, you can recall email within a specified period. It is usually 5 seconds, but you can set it for as high as 30 seconds from your email General settings.

• Disable download of Gmail to phone
  If you DO NOT want to download your messages to your phone/email client ever by POP/IMAP service, then you can set them as Disabled, so that you only restrict use of Gmail through the web-based browser.