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Gmail users experience outage

Google's e-mail service, Gmail, is being reported as offline for many people this morning.

The extent and cause of the outage isn't known at the moment. It is not a complete outage, but Twitter is abuzz with reports from users unable to access the Web service.

Users seem to be reporting mostly outages in Gmail.com accounts. Users of Google business e-mail accounts (Google Apps) are also reporting issues. Google's Apps status dashboard reports, "We're investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail. We will provide more information shortly."

Other services, such as Google … Read more

How to download any attachment in Gmail for Android

The official Gmail client for Android is relatively complete; you can handle most of your e-mail tasks without ever needing to sit in front of a PC. Unfortunately, there's one specific task where the app falls short: downloading attachments.

Sometimes you'll be able to preview and download an attachment, and other times you won't. Instead of letting you grab an MP3, PDF, or even DLL from an e-mail, it just opens the files -- or worse, it's a file type you can't preview. So here's a look at a plug-in for the … Read more

How to set custom Gmail label notifications on Honeycomb tablets

The Android Gmail app was just updated with some new features for Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) tablet users. Froyo and Gingerbread users get some performance improvements too, but the meat of the update is for Honeycomb tablets.

The updated Android Gmail app adds the capability to swipe between conversations, access recent labels from a dropdown menu, set custom notifications for labels, and sync 30 days of messages. Custom label notifications work only when sync is enabled. Here's how to set it up:

Step 1: After installing the Gmail update from the Google Play Store on your Honeycomb tablet, tap … Read more

Right Inbox now lets you track when an e-mail is opened

We originally told you about Right Inbox and how it allowed you to schedule when your e-mails in Gmail were to be sent. The latest version of the extension adds the ability to track when your e-mails are opened. If you currently have the Right Inbox extension installed, you should already see the new feature when composing an e-mail.

If you don't have the extension currently, head on over to RightInbox.com/install to get it. You'll need to be using either Firefox or Chrome.

After the extension is installed, compose a new message in Gmail. You will … Read more

Google Tap tries to April fool with Gmail a la Morse code

I am delighted that Google has used this first day of April to launch yet more of its most ingenious technology.

For the company's GMail blog has announced that it's time to move beyond the QWERTY keyboard. There are simply too many keys to think about. Instead, why not reduce the number of keys to two?

How is this possible? By turning each key into a dot or a dash, thereby allowing you to send Gmail by Morse code.

"This makes it ideal for situations where you need to discreetly send emails, such as when you're … Read more

Save Gmail messages in Google Docs

Cut and paste is great, but for some purposes, it's a tool of last resort. Gmail makes it much simpler to save your messages as documents and PDFs, keeping formatting intact. Here's how to do it: 

Log in to Gmail. Click the gear-shaped icon near the top right, then select Settings. Click the Labs tab near the top center. Scroll down and click Enable next to Create a Document.  Scroll to the top or bottom and click the button labeled Save Changes. The next time you want to save a message as a doc, … Read more

How to get new Google features to your Apps accounts right away

When new Google features are introduced, normal Google users get them right away, but Google Apps user accounts may be set to a scheduled release track, which delays the rollout of new features.

If you want new Google features to propagate immediately to your Apps accounts, you'll need to change the release track from Scheduled to Rapid Release. Here's how:

Log in to your Google Apps control panel and go to Domain settings > General. Scroll down to New User Features and change the selection from Scheduled Release to Rapid Release.

If you don't want to have … Read more

Nine tips for avoiding e-mail snafus

If you've ever sent a private e-mail to an unintended party, or forgot to include an attachment in a business e-mail, you're not alone.

Here are nine tips for avoiding common e-mail snafus:

1. Forgetting attachments "I've attached the document for your review." "Oops, no I didn't." Forgetting attachments is so common that Google's Forgotten Attachment Detector graduated from Google Labs to being a permanent feature in Gmail. The best way to avoid forgetting to include attachments, even if you use Gmail (the forgotten attachment detector is not foolproof), is to … Read more

Gmail: That's spam, and here's why

Wondering why a certain e-mail was dumped into your Gmail spam folder? Google will now clue you in.

As of yesterday, Gmail users can select any message banished to the spam folder and see a "Why is this message in Spam?" notice near the top. The notice will display a brief explanation accompanied by a "Learn more" link to a page describing the many reasons certain messages are considered spam.

A look at the e-mail in my own Gmail spam folder revealed a variety of explanations.

For one e-mail that claimed to be from YouTube but … Read more