How to do it step-by-step?

1. First you need to set up your other email to forward to your Gmail account. Most web-based emails have this. If you are using a premium hosting for your domain you can set the mail forwarding from within your Plesk, cPanel, or any control panel used in your hosting.

2. Next you need to get inside your Gmail account, go to Settings (at the top right) and click "Account" tab. Under “Send mail as,” click “Add another email address.” Enter your name or description of the forwarded mails and key in your alternative email address. You may also specify your “reply to” address if you want recipients to reply to a different email by default.

3. After clicking the "Next step" button, proceed by verifying your action. Verification code will then be sent to the alternative address.

4. Check your alternative email and click on the verification link and your new forwarding mail address should be activated.

That's it. You may want to check whether this works the way it should be by sending your email to the alternative address.

Technorati Tags: forwarding, gmail account, email forwarding, gmail

To change the theme you only need to go to "settings" and from there, find "themes" tab. A single click will change your Gmail inbox right away. More themes can be expected in the next couple of days or weeks.

Technorati Tags: gmail inbox, gmail themes

To get started, first you need to install the plugin. To initiate a video conversation, just hit the "Video & more" menu at the bottom of your Gmail chat window, and choose "Start video chat". For resizing you just need to click on the popup icon to make the video larger or alternatively you can simply click the full screen icon in the top left corner.

See it in action in the following video.

Technorati Tags: gmail, voice chat, google chat

Gmail Backup is another alternative solution that will backup all Gmail mails and mail folders with all labels, from fields and dates. Before initiating the backup, make sure to enable IMAP in the Gmail settings. You can also specify a time interval so that emails that come in during a certain period of time will be only backed up and not all of them.

One interesting feature in Gmail Backup is it stores the backup in Microsoft's eml format which allows user to easily import the messages into other mail clients.

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Technorati Tags: gmail backup, backup gmail mail

So, what's this new feature got to do with the scene above?

Simply put this new feature (Mail Goggles) will ask you to work out some simple questions (math related) before sending an email. It is a helpful feature to help preventing you from doing stupid thing when you subconsciously get the access to your very own mail.

Under this feature, you can set how hard the questions would be, specifying what days to turn on or turn off this feature and can be narrowed down to the specific time duration.

Believe me, this feature is no use if you are always in the right state of mind :)

Technorati Tags: gmail tricks, gmail labs

By enabling this feature, it will effectively encrypt data being sent to and from Gmail, keeping your data safe from being retrieved by unrelated parties. You can enable this feature by clicking on the "settings" tab and scroll down to the bottom where you can see the following option.

Why such connection is not set to be secured by default I hear you ask. One of the reason why Google giving Gmail users an option to choose from is due to the trade off that need to be experienced by users. When secured connection is put in motion the connection will be a little bit sluggish because of the encryption and decryption process.

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Technorati Tags: secured connection, https, gmail security

Currently there are 13 new features which are by default disabled and they can be enabled separately. Most of them look very useful. So here are several features that get my attention

1. 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail
2. Friends' profile pictures when you chat with them
3. Customize keyboard shortcut mappings
4. Mouse gestures
5. Random signature

In case something went wrong (function breaks Gmail), you can always use the following rescue link

http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0

which will effectively turn all the functions off. Play around with them and let Gmail knows what you think of the new features.

Technorati Tags: gmail, gmail labs, new features

As a matter of fact, regardless of how good a system is, there's always a small fraction of spams that manage to sneak up on our mailbox. So, here are few things that we can do to further eliminate spams attempt.

1. Block image spam

As the webmail filters get better, spam also evolves and becomes harder to block. This is particularly true when it uses images and literary texts. Here's a simple Gmail trick to divert spam messages (contain images) to the Trash folder (or any folder you specify) automatically.

Step 1: Firstly you need to go to 'Settings > Filters' and choose "Create a Filter".

Step 2: Type 'multipart/related .gif' in the 'Has the Words' field and also check the 'Has Attachment' box.

Step 3: Click next and select "Delete It" to move the spam message directly to the GMail Trash folder.

Note: There's a small chance of GMail filter triggering false positive and move few important emails from real senders to the Trash folder. To make sure this thing doesn't happen, create a new folder (label) in gmail and change the instruction to redirect all related mails to the new folder. You can sort out the mails later on during your free time.

2. The Plus Hack

If you like to sign up for internet freebies or buy things online, this tip will definitely come handy. Creating alias emails for aforementioned activities which are very likely to spam you, is an effective way to completely reduce number of spams in your Gmail mailbox. Not only you can track who is the culprit and you can also accurately learn with whom your email is shared with.

To do this, simply put a '+' after your account name and add words.

Example: I can do 'eches+online_deal@gmail' or 'eches+spammer@gmail.com'. All these mails will come into your mailbox anyway, but they can easily be filtered to a folder and even to trash them.

3. The Googlemail Hack

When you registered with Gmail account, you are actually given two email addresses

yourusername @gmail.com
yourusername @googlemail.com

You can use both without having fear the later might not reach your mailbox. Like the above trick, you can take advantage of these two domains so that less spam reaches your Gmail Inbox via filtering system.

For example you distribute 'yourusername @googlemail.com' address to your close contacts while keeping the 'yourusername @gmail.com' address for public. Set filter such that all 'yourusername @googlemail.com' to be delivered to a special folder. This is a definitive way to ensure important messages not to be diverted to Trash folder by mistake.

4. The Dot Hack

Gmail doesn’t acknowledge dots (.) in your account name. So I can use 'eches.net@gmail.com' or without any dots at all. Either way will return to 'echesnet@gmail.com'.

Again you can use the power of filter system to divert certain aliases to specific folders or directly to Trash folder.

I hope you can you use some of the tips above to reduce spams in your Gmail mailbox. Again, these tips are not definitive ways to completely eliminate spams but they can effectively reduce the spam numbers.

Technorati Tags: gmail tricks, block spam, gmail tips, prevent spam, google, gmail, dot hack, plus hack, googlemail hack