Super-Size Your Gmail
It is a given, that often software developers withhold features and functionality that should be in the manual. It is commonly referred to as “undocumented features”.
With Gmail from Google, there’s no exception. I often see posts in forums asking if your can create a alias for your email addresses?
Answer: NO (but there is an alternative "work-a-round")
Gmail does however provide an email suffix “add-on”
Interesting enough a period (.) into first part of your email address does not matter. The example below will get an emailto either address.
- [email protected] is the same as [email protected].
Powerful Plus (+)
By adding a plus “+” and a word before the "@" in Gmail, will act as a sudo alias.
All email messages will delivered to the “main” inbox in Gmail. The ONLY difference is that the “to address” will have the suffix adding a new dimension to organizing your email by means of filters.
A typical scenario would when signing up for a newsletter. Use a email address with a keyword. Now create a filter that will move the email to a folder/label.
With filters and rules, apart from moving email, one can also mark emails with importance, archiving, marking as read and much more. (look out for a future post)
Family is important!
Try adding a “+vip” or “+family” to your gmail address and give this to family and friends. Having a rule that will turn on the importance flag for these messages and allow them to stand out.
Sync with Mobile
Mobile data can be costly at the time, furthermore when on the move, filtering out less import message will allow you to focus these selected email and also reduce data costs.
With Android Gmail App, you can create a mobile folder, thereby limiting the amount of message that is sync’ed with the device.
All work, no play!
A huge percentage of Gmail users (free version) use their account for business and personal messages. Now you can suffix the front part of your email with “+w”.
To do or not to do?
Taking this email labelling to the next level, one could use a “+todo” & email tasks & reminders to yourself. When viewing this label in Gmail you have essentially a temporary Todo list.
Using these tweaks can have a great impact on the way your email messages are managed.
Don’t allow emails to rule your productivity and/or life!