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Improving Gmail

DaveB [PersonRank 3]

Thursday, May 29, 2008
16 years ago5,679 views

What can be added or improved in Gmail to make it perfect?

My list:

1. Ability to label outgoing messages. This one seems obvious – can't believe that it hasn't been there since the beginning.

2. Improved "Contacts". It has gotten better, but still has a long way to go.

3. Add notes to emails. I would like to be able to add some thoughts or reminders to messages.

4. Nested labels. There was a hint that this might be coming last fall, but nothing yet.

5. Integrate GrandCentral. (and then give me voice-to-text for my voicemail messages)

What else?

David Mulder [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Finally fix the fact that you get two alert boxes if the subject and body is empty...

ybad [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

gmail system give you a message when your friends read your mail. it is optional, of course.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

#5 would be absolutely wonderful but i have a feeling when they do that it'll be part of something big but i'm sure they're working on it.

mrbene [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I want to see:

8 – "Send Later"
9 – Don't set Email Subject and Email Address as the title of the page, so that it's no longer visible in the browser history for my now ex to discover.

in RE: 2, I no longer use Contacts because it is significantly more clunky than it was initially. They have also removed functionality (arbitrary labels for fields).

Motti [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Regarding #4 – Adding Notes. To add a note I simply reply to the thread with the email address myaddress+note[put at-character here]gmail.com (GMail supports plus addressing so it still goes through to my regular inbox) and have a filter rule to label any email sent to this address as "Note" and to archive it, so that I can see at a glance which emails have notes attached.

The only problem is that if later emails arrive on that the thread the "note" gets sort of left hung around in the middle of the thread, but that's a minor niggle.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Agreed on the contacts option. Last time I tried to use that interface I found it highly confusing. Other than that I hope they might consider the option to delay messages before sending, and also, to get rid of stuff we don't need (e.g. friend invites at the bottom left, even when it can be collapsed). And yeah, improving speed would probably be the biggest plus.

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

<< 4. Nested labels. There was a hint that this might be coming last fall, but nothing yet. >>

I think this would make it too confusing, and completely destroy the whole point of labels.

DaveB [PersonRank 3]

16 years ago #

Forgot about delayed message/send later – that would be a nice option.

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

You can already label outgoing messages can't you?

I just did in my account...

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> You can already label outgoing messages can't you?

You can label a draft and label a sent message but you can't label an outgoing message as such, can you?

DaveB [PersonRank 3]

16 years ago #

Sam,

As Tony mentioned, you can label a "sent" message, but not until after you send it. I would like to be able to label a message as I am composing it, so I do not have the extra step of finding it in the sent folder and attaching a label.

Ianf [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Top of my list, but, using DaveB's numbering:

6. Ability to merge selected conversations into single threads.

7. Ability to edit main conversation=thread subject lines; highlight "keywords"; delete (and/or suppress display of) selected parts of a message.

8. Ability to predefine more than one alternative own "Name Label" (with <myAccountName[put at-character here]gmail>) in the Accounts, so that I could switch at will between several according to context and destination of the msg. Google only cares about "non-phished" account-name part of it, why should they care that I want to be, say, "Authorative Answer from Authorative Answerserver" <correctAccountName[put at-character here]gmail> for the day?

9. Ability to link selected keywords or snippets in messages to a separate "To do" or "Notes" list right within Gmail (=in effect a private/ manual index to potentially disassociated msgs). Individual items there should be timestamped, but editable and re-arrangeable within the list.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> 7. Ability to edit main conversation=thread subject lines

I second this, and/ or some way to add keywords to a given email to better find it later on. It would be helpful if you get, say, a mail with no or no clarifying subject that is still a real mail (not spam).

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> ... so I do not have the extra step of finding it in the sent folder
> and attaching a label.

You can, of course, just click the "View sent message" link in the yellow box after sending a message. It's still an extra step, but much quicker than finding it in your sent items.

Motti [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Philipp Lenssen: Wrt tadding keywords, see my comment above http://blogoscoped.com/forum/132231.html#id132243 about adding notes to emails via self-emailing using plus addressing. I primarily do this to label notes with addition keywords or descriptions so I find them using search.

I should add a related trick I use which is to send email to myself (using plus-addressing) as a form of "hidden' labels (my label list is getting a little large). I can then later search for these messages (using 'sent:me+keyword[put at-character here]gmail.com') to recover these "labelled" messages (nowadays I can keep these as bookmarks thanks to Gmails reusable dynamic URLs). Combined with labels this can be used as a form of second-level labelling. (Btw, I don't agree hierarchical labels are a good idea.)

Jigar Mehta [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Drag and Drop attachment support (may be by developing activex control for compose mail and reply windows)..

I am sick of browsing the files from my gigantic harddrive now.. need more slick and eligant solution! Something like Microsoft did for Skydrive or Live Workspace!

Frank D. [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

To all above. Much of all your sought gmail options are already in 'Firefox' with 'better gmail 2' plug in!
You can even send yourselve notes.
But your right, "contacts" could be better

Ianf [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

We were talking of improving Gmail, not of remedying it via some specific browser plug-in, and "better gmail X" flavours of it. So let's concentrate on ideas that Gmail's team may get to learn about, consider, and possibly implement....

DaveB [PersonRank 3]

16 years ago #

David Mulder – "Finally fix the fact that you get two alert boxes if the subject and body is empty..."

Do you often send messages without a subject or message?

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