Official Gmail Blog
News, tips and tricks from Google's Gmail team and friends.
Syncing your Google Calendar
November 25, 2008
Posted by Wen-Ai Yu, Support Strategist
We on the Google Calendar team work hard to play well with others, so you can synchronize your calendars with a number of mobile devices and desktop applications. This way, you can choose whichever calendars you want to use and keep all of them up to date. Most of these options have been around for a while, and we're happy to announce that Google Calendar now supports the CalDAV protocol -- an evolving, open standard for calendar synchronization.
Apple iCal and Mozilla Sunbird
You can now sync your calendar with applications that support CalDAV, such as Apple's iCal and Mozilla's Sunbird. Learn more about how to get started in our
help center
.
Microsoft Outlook
Google Calendar Sync for Outlook
lets you sync events between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar. You determine the direction of information flow, as well as the sync frequency. It's compatible with Microsoft Outlook versions 2003 and 2007, and operating systems Windows XP and Windows Vista.
BlackBerry mobile devices
If you carry a BlackBerry smartphone,
Google Sync for BlackBerry
synchronizes your device's native calendar with Google. You can access your Google Calendar even when you don't have network coverage and get alerts for upcoming appointments with sound or vibration. It automatically runs in the background, so you can attend to other tasks and still be reminded of your appointments.
Android devices
It's easy to connect an Android-powered phone to Google Calendar using the phone's
preloaded Calendar application
. New events are pushed in real-time to your phone and any changes you make on-the-go are immediately available on the web.
If you have another mobile device, just visit
calendar.google.com
from your phone, and you'll get a special version of Google Calendar optimized for the small screen.
Spice up your inbox with colors and themes
November 19, 2008
Posted by Annie Chen, Gmail engineer
Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven't been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we're launching today, there's a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There's even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers -- it's not exactly practical, but it's great for testing out your geek cred. We've also done a minor facelift to Gmail's default look to make it crisper and cleaner -- you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here and there.
As you can see from these photos taken around our office in Zurich, Switzerland, themes have made their way into more than our inboxes -- that's a character from the ninja theme made out of pixel blocks, customized laptop decals, and a giant Zoozimps character on a beam next to my desk:
To customize your inbox, go to the
Themes tab under Settings
. We'll be rolling out themes to everyone over the next couple of days, so if you don't see them yet, check back soon. As for which theme to choose, don't ask us. We're
neutral
;)
Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat
November 11, 2008
Posted by Justin Uberti, Software Engineer
I'm a big user of Gmail chat. Being able to switch from email to chat as needed, all within the same app, is really great for productivity. But people can only type so fast, and even with our
new emoticons
, there are still some things that just can't be expressed in a chat message.
That's why today we're launching voice and video chat -- right inside Gmail. We've tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video -- all for free. All you have to do is
download and install the voice and video plugin
and we take care of the rest. And in the
spirit of open communications
, we designed this feature using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat.
Once you install the plugin, to start a video chat, just click on the "Video & more" menu at the bottom of your Gmail chat window, and choose "Start video chat." You'll have a few seconds to make sure you look presentable while it's ringing, and then you'll see and hear your friend live, right from within Gmail. You can click the "pop-out" icon
to make the video larger, or click the fullscreen icon
in the upper left-hand corner for a fully immersive experience. See this all in action in the video below:
Our team is spread between
Google offices in the US and Sweden
, and video has really changed the way we work. Collaborating across continents and timezones is a fact of life for us, and it sure is easier (and greener) to click "Start video chat" than to get on a plane! And when I do have to visit another Google office, I can use Gmail voice and video chat to check in with my family.
We've just started to roll out Gmail voice and video chat for both PCs and Macs, so if you don't see it right away, don't worry -- it could take a day or so for this feature to be available in all Gmail and Google Apps accounts. If you want to download the plugin right away, visit
http://gmail.com/videochat
. And if you need a webcam, there are a
few models with special discounts
through November 30th (I use the QuickCam Pro 9000 myself).
Tip: Your email, wherever you are on the web, with Toolbar
November 3, 2008
Posted by Aseem Sood, Product Manager, Google Toolbar
Are you addicted to email? Do you keep Gmail open on your browser, constantly hitting refresh to get your latest messages?
If you're using
Google Toolbar 5
for Internet Explorer (or Toolbar's Firefox
version
), you can add the
Gmail custom button
to make your life easier. With the Gmail button, you can get new message alerts, see previews of your mail and use Toolbar's search box to find any message no matter what page you're on.
Google Toolbar also has a "Send to" feature: when you click on the "Send to" icon, a Gmail compose window opens that automatically includes a link to the page you're currently on and any text you have highlighted on that page. This makes it easy to email your friends interesting pages you come across as you browse the web.
Plus, you can also add Google gadgets to your Toolbar to bring your favorite websites and online services closer to you. One of my favorites is the
Google Calendar gadget
: by clicking on the calendar icon, I can check out my schedule for the next few days and even add events.
To try out these gadgets for yourself, check out
Toolbar's gallery
.
Almost new in Labs: SMS Text Messaging for chat
October 31, 2008
Posted by Leo Dirac, Product Manager
Oh snap. Last night, we started rolling out a new feature to
Gmail Labs
that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail. It combines the best parts of IM and texting: you chat from your computer and reach your friends no matter where they are. Your friends who are away from their computers get your messages as texts and can peck out replies on their little keyboards. It was pretty cool for a few minutes last night when we were sitting around texting each other.
Then we found a glitch. When you'd try to turn it on, it wouldn't fully enable. We thought about keeping it out there -- bugs and all -- but the experience wasn't that great. So, in the spirit of Labs, we've pulled SMS chat back to fix it, and we'll get it back out to you as soon as it's ready -- probably within 2 weeks, so stay tuned.
New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets
October 27, 2008
Posted by Dan Pupius, Gmail engineer
Gmail Labs has been a really fun way to easily try out new ideas and get some of our pet feature requests implemented quickly. We wanted to take this to the next level and let you start adding your own stuff to Gmail. Today we're launching a few Labs experiments that let you add gadgets to the left-nav, next to Chat and Labels.
To get you started, we've worked with the engineers from the Calendar and Docs teams on two highly requested features: a simple way to see your Google Calendar agenda and get an alert when you have a meeting, and a gadget that shows a list of your recently accessed Google Docs and lets you search across all of your documents right from within Gmail.
There's a third Lab that allows you to add any gadget by pasting in the URL of its XML spec file (e.g. http://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml). We realize this isn't very user friendly right now; it's a sandbox mainly aimed at developers who want to play around with gadgets in Gmail. We're not tied to the left-nav as a primary way to extend Gmail -- in fact we think it is relatively limited and doesn't offer scalable real estate. There are also some downsides to the iframe-style Gadgets we're using today -- they can sometimes slow down the page. We're fanatical about speed, so we'll be keeping a close eye on performance.
This is also a chance for us to test the developer infrastructure involved. We're using common gadget infrastructure, such as the Apache
Shindig
project, and working with other gadget containers to make gadgets more portable.
We're looking forward to your comments in the
Labs forum
, so send us your ideas, let us know how you like the Calendar and Docs gadgets, and if you've written a gadget that you think works well in Gmail, post it and let us and other users try it out.
A couple of notes:
(1) Try out Anatol's
Navbar drag and drop
Labs feature so you can easily re-order all the boxes on Gmail's left hand side.
(2) Not all gadgets are fully compatible with https, so if you're connecting to Gmail via https, you may see mixed content warnings caused by parts of the gadgets being served over http. We're working on fixing this where we can.
Update
: To turn on these gadgets, click Settings, then visit the Labs tab. Scroll to the bottom, select "Enable" next to the features you want to turn on, and then click "Save Changes."
A picture is worth a thousand words
October 23, 2008
Posted by Darren Lewis, Gmail engineer
Here on the Gmail team, we're always thinking of ways to help you communicate. Back in the day, we put chat right inside Gmail. Then along came
group chat and more emoticons
. And when we realized that late night communication had its downsides, we created a state-of-the-art
lucidity test
for after-hours email. Anyway, the black and white days of text-based emails have had their day. Following the evolutionary path blazed by
colored labels
, we present, in all their technicolor glory, emoticons in your mail.
No more will you have to settle for a ;) when you can have a
. Out with the "XOXO" and in with the
. And of course, when the bad news smells really bad,
transcends all words.
So raise your
and welcome in the colorful new world of Gmail
P.S. For those of you who love our chat smileys,
we've also added a whole new set for your enjoyment.
Gmail for mobile: faster, smoother, and now in more languages
October 23, 2008
Posted by Peter Baldwin, Software Engineer, Google mobile team
When I joined the Gmail for mobile team a year ago, the mobile client worked like a web application designed for networks that were always available. This was fine on a fast and reliable network, but when you hopped on the subway, network reliability could be a big problem. Today, we're happy to announce Gmail for mobile 2.0 for J2ME-supported and BlackBerry phones. For this version, we changed our fundamental assumption about the network. We re-thought every action that you might perform with the app and tried to solve for the case where there is no signal. We wanted to make the mobile client faster and more reliable and added some other new features along the way.
If you haven't tried Gmail on your phone in a while, try this new version and
let us know
what you think. Gmail for mobile 2.0 is designed to be more reliable in low signal areas and provides basic offline support for phones like the Nokia N95, Sony Ericsson W910i, and BlackBerry Curve. You can now log into multiple accounts (including both Gmail and Google Apps email accounts) at the same time. Switching between them is as easy as a few button clicks or just hitting
+ j on phones that have a QWERTY keyboard. We've also added support for multiple mobile drafts, undo (using the menu or the z shortcut), and sending mail in the background (no more staring at the "Sending..." dialog until it finally gets sent). Be sure to check the help page from Gmail for mobile's main menu for a list of all keyboard shortcuts.
To download Gmail for mobile version 2.0, just go to
m.google.com/mail
in your mobile browser.
Parlez-vous français? ¿Habla usted español? Gmail for mobile 2.0 supports over
35 languages
, and the application language will automatically match your phone's language setting.
New in Labs: Canned Responses
October 21, 2008
Posted by Chad Parry, Gmail engineer
Hello, you've reached Chad's mailbox. Thanks for your email about the latest Labs feature: Canned Responses, or email for the truly lazy. I'm on paternity leave so I won't be able to respond personally. Instead, I hope you'll enjoy this automated message.
If you're sick of typing out the same reply every time someone emails you with a common question, now you can compose your reply once and save the message text with the "Canned responses" button. Later, you can open that same message and send it again and again.
It couldn't get any easier unless Gmail automatically pushed the Send button. If you're lazy enough to think that would be a good idea, then read on, friend.
Gmail already lets you create
filters
based on a combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more in your incoming messages. Turn on Canned Responses in Labs, and you can set a filter to grab one of your saved responses, create an automated reply, and hit the Send button for you.
You can set up different automated messages for different keywords, just like
you said you wanted
. (We're friends, so I trust you to use this power responsibly.)
More changes to Gmail contact manager
October 21, 2008
Posted by Benjamin Grol, Product Manager, Google Contacts
After hearing consistent feedback that you wanted more control over your contacts, we've changed the way Gmail suggests contacts to you. Up to this point, if you emailed someone five times, we'd automatically move them into My Contacts. Now, we'll no longer automatically add contacts to your My Contacts group. Instead, you can go to Suggested Contacts, select the contacts you'd like and move them into My Contacts. All of your contacts -- whether they're in My Contacts or Suggested Contacts -- will continue to show in auto-complete as you're composing messages.
As part of this change, we're moving previously auto-added contacts back into Suggested Contacts. Only contacts that you've edited, imported or added to a group will remain in My Contacts. This will provide everyone with a clean slate and, we hope, a better point for syncing contacts with mobile devices (for example with
Android
). We'll be rolling this change out to everyone over the next few days.
We realize there's a lot we can do to make Gmail contacts even more useful, and the feedback we received
last time
we updated the contact manager was helpful, so keep
letting us know
what you think.
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