11 Gmail Hacks That Will Change Your Life

Make your Gmail experience a million times smoother with these simple but unbelievably useful features.

1. Undo accidental emails and save yourself from terrible embarrassments:

1. Click the gear in the top right and select Settings.

2. Click to "Labs" and search for the lab feature entitled "Undo Send." Enable it, and then click "Save changes."

3. Still in "Settings," go to "General," and scroll down to the "Undo Send" section. Enable it there too.

4. Remind yourself never to send emails when you're drunk in the future.

2. Enable these glorious, time-saving keyboard shortcuts ...

1. Click the gear in the top right and select Settings.

2. Find the "Keyboard shortcuts" section and select Keyboard shortcuts on.

3. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Here are some more of the sweet, sweet shortcuts that Gmail has on tap for you.

3. ... then customize them to be anything you want!!!

Once you've enabled your shortcuts:

1. Click the gear in the top right and select Settings.

2. Click "Keyboard shortcuts" at the top right of the page.

3. Change the shortcuts to whatever's convenient, or add alternative shortcuts anywhere you like!

4. Use the vastly underappreciated "Auto-Advance" feature to speed up your email management:

Auto-advance will automatically show your next conversation after you delete, archive, or mute a conversation – hopefully using your sweet new shortcuts! (#, e, m) – rather than kicking you back out into your Inbox every time you deal with an email. This'll save you thousands of unnecessary clicks!

To enable this feature, just:

1. Click the gear in the top right and select Settings.

2. Click the "Labs" section in the top middle of the page.

3. Search for "Auto-advance" in the search bar.

4. Click the "Enable" radio button.

5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save Changes."

5. Organize your labels!

Show only the really important labels you use all the time in your sidebar:

1. Click the gear icon in the top right and select Settings.

2. Click "Labels" at the top left of the page.

3. Choose which labels you want to show or hide by selecting from the list.

6. Remember: [e-mail] = [e-mail]

wallpoper.com

The dots are a lie, people. A lie!!!

7. Insert images directly into an email:

Just right click on the image and select "Copy Image." Then hit Ctrl V (or Command V if you're a Mac) and paste it into the body of the email.

Once it's pasted, you can click on the image and select what size you'd like it to be.

You can also drag images into your email from another part of your screen, OR just clikc the "Insert Images" icon at the bottom of your Compose screen (press the + icon to find it) and add an image that way.

8. Send canned responses for repetitive emails

buzzfeed.com

Go to “Labs,” then search for “Canned Responses” and enable it.

Go to “Compose” and write the canned email. Then, just below the “To” line, click “Canned Responses,” and go down to “Save.” Click “New Canned Response,” and give that email a title.

Then the next time you want to reply with that canned email, click “Canned Responses” and select the email response you want. Gmail will insert it at the top of your reply, and all you have to do is send it off.

9. Use this brilliant hack to filter out spam and promotions:

Since newsletters are legally required to have an unsubscribe option somewhere, that gives them a unifying word that you can filter out!

1. Go to your filters (click the gear, click settings, then click filters). Scroll to the bottom and click "Create a new filter."

2. Under "Has the words," write "Unsubscribe," then hit "Create filter with this search."

3. Mark "Skip the inbox (Archive it)."

4. Mark "Apply the label" and create a label called "read/review" or something similar.

This way, you can glance at anything that's automated all at once when you go to your read/review label, rather than having it bother you in your inbox.

If you want to continue receiving some of these emails in your inbox (say, notifications from Facebook and Twitter), you can just edit the filter to create exceptions for those words (i.e., put "Facebook" "Twitter" under the "Doesn't have" field).

Bonus info: There's often a handy "Unsubscribe" link right next to the sender's name on promotional emails!

10. Make the most out of your tabs!

Gmail's new tabs can be a bit confusing at first, but they're well worth taking the time to get used to. To enable them, just click on the gear and click "Configure Inbox," then select the ones you want to use.

Promotions and Updates are great ways to keep your endless updates from Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere in a manageable place that you can bulk-delete at a glance, but the secret best one is "Forums," which will seperate out anything that's sent to a group so that you can prioritize emails from people who put your name in the "To" line and look at group threads when you're ready to move on from your main inbox.

11. Enable the Inbox Count in your browser tab:

This is another useful labs feature (gear icon > settings > labs > search for "unread message icon" > enable > save changes) that will let you see how many new messages you have by having a quick glance at the gmail browser tab rather than having to click over.