Gmail Lab Features that You Want to Enable

So, today I decided to go browsing through the Gmail labs section. To enable them, just hit “Settings” and then choose “Labs” in Gmail. Here are my top picks:

Previews

We are all lazy people who don’t want to click. Thankfully, Gmail has four preview options you can enable: YouTube previews, Picasa previews, Flickr previews, and Yelp previews. After enabling these options, these items show up inline in the email.

Mark as Read Button

Sorting through email is a pain. The additional Mark as Read button can help. Simple, yet handy.

Forgotten Attachment Detector

This one’s interesting. If you type “attached” or “attachment” in your email and click send but forgot to attach the attachment, it warns you. Quite handy for preventing accidental mistakes. Which brings us to our next option…

Undo Send

Ever hit send and then realize you made a big mistake? Thankfully, with Undo Send for Gmail, you have 5 seconds after you click send to hit Undo, which brings you back to the compose window.

Send and Archive

You’re probably going to do both actions anyway…this handy add-on combines the buttons!

Title Tweaks

If you have 20 tabs open in your browser, you can’t easily see how many unread messages are in your inbox because the tabs are too small. With Title Tweaks, the undead count moves to the very front of your tab, so you can see at a glance if there are messages waiting to be read.

Search Autocomplete

Searching just got a whole lot faster with Search Autocomplete. With Search Autocomplete, names appear under the search box as you type.

Insert Images

Instead of attaching the images, you can insert them! This is handy because it accepts URLs. So if you’re storing images somewhere like Twitpic, you can still embed them in your email.

Also be sure to check out my previous post about Signature Tweaks for Gmail!

Tweak Your Gmail Signature

By default, Gmail puts two ugly dashes between your email body and signature. Plus, your signature always scoots to the bottom of replies. Thankfully, Gmail Labs feature called “Signature Tweaks” solves the problem. What it does is place your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and remove the “–” line that appears before signatures. So head on over to your Gmail Labs Settings and hit “Enable” at the item called Signature Tweaks. Problem solved! Now your signature will appear before quoted text, and the “–” will be removed.

A Neat Address Book Export Utility

One great thing about Gmail that it allows you to import CSV files. One thing that sucks is that Mac OS X’s Address Book can’t export your cards to CSV. Well, we have a solution. A to G is a simple utility that exports your entire Address Book to a CSV. You can then go to Gmail and import the file. This no-frills application doesn’t even have to install to run!

Note: If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, the “Sync with Google” option in Address Book Preferences is already enabled. Just enable the check box and start syncing.