Why You Should be Using Gmail

Gmail is #1, Plain and Simple...

If you don't use Gmail, I very highly recommend you make the move. If only it were possible, I'd suggest you travel back in time and make the move years ago. It is beautiful, powerful, easy to make your own, and makes email management so much more logical, clean, and fast. Whenever possible, my email inbox is empty. I only delete junk, so everything else in my life is searchable (I hear these Google folks have search pretty well figured out) and yet even with this volume my email is organized with very little effort on my part.

Labels - Not Just for Email, This is the New Way to Organize

Labels are an easy way to keep emails organized, but more than that labels will soon (I think) become the standard for all things tech. We see it on blog sites already, it isn't a new concept. Think to your personal computer, you know you put together a guest list for a party a few years ago and want to start with that for a new one. It is in your documents... somewhere. In 2012 you solve this by searching, maybe remembering, but only after some time. In 2015 (ish?) you solve it because you start typing related topics "party" and "list" or maybe the ".xlsx" extension - the file instantly appears as the top hit. Who cares where a file actually exists on your hard drive if it is instantly available when you need it? Apply 5 relevant labels then get that file out of sight. (The slow-to-adopt tech folks are cringing here, bear with me).

Gmail pioneered bringing labels to email. The email receipt from a donation gets "Receipts" because it is just that. However it also gets "2012 Taxes" and maybe "Finances". This way when I go to my 2012 Taxes "folder" (I'll explain the merge of folder and label concepts soon), I can easily find all my tax related emails including this one. I also want to see it when I am looking through receipts though, but why would I want to duplicate an email just to have it in 2 places? You don't. 

Oh and to make your life easy, you can automate the label application process so your email labels itself.

Folders Meet Labels

The Gmail terminology is to Archive an email (with or without labels applied to it) to get it out of your inbox without deleting it. You can think of moving an email to a folder as applying a label (the name of the folder) then archiving that message. 2 labels? No problem, the message is effectively in 2 "folders" without duplicating that email and eating up more of your quota.

Cross Platform Beauty

One great aspect of Gmail is that it is platform agnostic. I've got an iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro, a Dell laptop for work, and a custom built Windows 7 PC home media server. Queue the faithful UNIX user rolling eyes at the omission from the list (I use UNIX 8-12 hours per day, every day, just go with it). Notably absent from the list is Android, but it is a safe bet that Google's email solution is tailored to have the best experience on their platform.

Gmail plays nicely with all sorts of mail clients, if you insist on using a mail client. I have personally shifted from a faithful mail client user (I've tried many different flavors) to the web interface. I'll go into more detail later, but the web interface is how you'd expect email to work because it is so highly customizable, but it is beautiful, yet simple and powerful exactly as it is with no customizations. The phone and tablet versions even support the "swipe to delete" motion that you're used to.

One Inbox, Infinite* Accounts

You can redirect all of your email accounts to go to Gmail so that you can log into Gmail and see everything. You can send emails while logged into your Gmail account from any account also. For example I have my University of Colorado email come to Gmail and I can respond to any email with my CU account (regardless of where it was sent to originally).

If you don't want the clutter of multiple accounts you can apply a rule that any email from a given account (i.e. CU) gets the label "CU" and skips the inbox. This way your "CU" folder is a 2nd inbox for only messages from that account.

*If there is a limit to the number of accounts you can plug in, I haven't hit it yet.

Labs, Customizing Gmail

Out of the box Gmail is great. There are some things you might want to tweak to make it even better, these are "Labs." Labs are features you turn on or off (off by default) that really enhance the experience, and are a strong reason to use the Gmail web interface instead of a mail client. Beyond the style there are some layout labs, some features, and some nerdy fun (like enabling the game Snake right in your inbox!). First you'll have to enable Gmail labs.

Here are some of my favorite (out of the many options):

• Signature Tweaks - This puts your email signature at the bottom of the email you're composing, not the bottom of the entire thread. I can't imagine why Google doesn't change the default here, but at least there is a lab to fix it.
• Send & Archive button - Adds a 'Send & Archive' button when composing messages to archive the email after you send it.
• YouTube/Flickr/Google Docs/etc. previews - Attachments and/or links can be viewed right in your message without having to go to the external site for certain objects.

Push and Pull, Gmail on your iOS Device

Gmail on your iPhone is awesome. I use Gmail as my master contacts list so that I never lose anything if I get a new phone, plus it makes bulk edits much easier since I can use the browser interface. When you set it up you have the option to use the Gmail account type or the Exchange account type, the latter isn't made obvious to you.

I highly suggest setting up your Gmail account as an Exchange account, here's how. This way your contacts, notes, tasks, calendars, and email are all instantly synced with the web. Changes to any item in one place is immediately available everywhere, on every device. What this gets you is Push support meaning emails are pushed to your phone instead of your phone having to check the server every X minutes (which drains the battery). Push email also means emails come to your phone immediately. One thing to note is that when you tap the Trash icon in the native iOS mail client you are actually archiving the message, not deleting it. This can be solved by selecting the 'Move to Folder' icon and selecting the trash. If you set it up as a Gmail account instead of Exchange, you can select what you want the delete button to do.

Making the Switch

If you're hesitant, there is a lot of help out there. Google has official support pages for it. You can keep your old account by forwarding it all to your Gmail account, and if you don't want to tell anyone you're using Gmail you can still respond from your old email address while enjoying all of the other features of Gmail. Feel free to ask questions in the comments. Everyone in my family has made the switch, this includes folks from 12 to 85 of all technological competencies.

Plugins

There are lots of really cool plugins that Gmail openly supports. My favorite is Boomerang. Boomerang allows you to have messages "Boomerang" right back to your inbox when you want them to. It is very powerful, and it is free. There are many other plugins by other 3rd parties so you can solve nearly any problem you might have.


I'm sure there are many more reasons to use Gmail, I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.