Tips for Google Gmail

It's a Plus
Use a plus symbol and a keyword after your account name and before the "@gmail.com" in your e-mail address for mail coming from a particular source, such as a forum or an e-tailer you want to highlight (for example, john.doe+forum@gmail.com). You can then set up a filter to route mail sent to these special addresses (especially useful if spammers get hold of the address).


Your Own Domain
It's easy to set Gmail up to send mail that looks like it's coming from one of your other addresses. Go to Settings > Accounts, then click on "Add another e-mail address." A small window will pop up asking to input your name and the other e-mail address. Then click Next Step > Send Verification, and Gmail will send an e-mail to that other account with a link to click to confirm that you want to be able to send mail using its address in Gmail.


Feed the Gmail Beast
You can set up your RSS reader to notify you when you receive new Gmail messages. Enter https://gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom as the name of the feed, then your username and password. Note that not all feed readers will be compatible with the Gmail feed, so your mileage may vary.


Print It!
One of Gmail's key innovations was to show groups of related messages as one long thread. Unfortunately, the default option for printing a thread is to print all the messages, which can get out of hand if you have a back-and-forth exchange that features a couple dozen replies. To print a single e-mail from a thread, open the message and click the downward arrow at the top right-hand corner of the message. Select Print from the drop-down menu, and the message will open in a new window. The Print dialog box will also pop up to allow you to print the message.


Office Alternative
Google has recently integrated its Google Spreadsheet and Google Docs apps into Gmail, and they're both compatible with popular Microsoft Office file formats. When you receive a Microsoft Excel XLS file or a Microsoft Word DOC file as a Gmail attachment, you can click "Open as a Google spreadsheet" or "Open as a Google document" to view the file. Note that you will have to create a free Google Docs & Spreadsheets account before you view these file types.