How to configure forwarding and POP/IMAP access for your Gmail account

With Gmail, you get quite a bit of access to your mail. This tutorial should help you understand how to put that access to good use.

Gmail gives you the option of activating POP and IMAP access on your account. This allows you to check and send mail using an email client like Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook.

You can also have Gmail forward all your mail to a specific email address.

To do any of this, you’ll need to go to Settings.

Then click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.

If you’ve watched the tutorial on Filters, you should know that you can set up a filter to forward some of your mail to another email address.

The Forwarding feature here is similar, but this will forward all of your mail.

Click this button to enable forwarding.

Then, select the phrase email address and replace it with your email address.

You’ll also need to decide what you want Gmail to do with your mail after it’s been forwarded it to you.

We’ll set ours to archive.

Forwarding has been configured. Now to set up POP/IMAP access.

Mail accounts with POP and IMAP access are not usually given away for free, but fortunately Gmail does this. These two protocols are how you’d typically access an email account given to you by your web hosting provider.

POP access to your mail should be enabled by default.

If this isn’t the case, you have two options, described here. We’ll choose the first.

As before, we’ll tell Gmail to archive mail after it’s been accessed with POP.

Scroll down.

To finish setting up POP access, you’ll need to configure your email client. Instructions can be found via this link.

IMAP access is generally preferred over POP, as long as your mail client supports it and is supported by Gmail.

IMAP is disabled by default. Click here to enable it, if you want, but we’ll leave ours disabled.

When finished here, click Save Changes.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to configure forwarding and POP/IMAP access for your Gmail account.

How to use Gmail’s chat feature

As with most online email services, Gmail provides you with instant messaging capabilities. Gmail Chat works inside your browser, while GoogleTalk is a program that you can install on your computer.

Both of these allow you to communicate with your Gmail friends, and both have their advantages. In this tutorial, we’ll be showing you how to use Gmail Chat.

Scroll down.

Here is the chat area of Gmail. It’s visible on the left column of every page.

As these two notes tell you, text chats are saved and searchable just like with email conversations, and you can even have a video chat with a friend.

Click each X to close the notes.

In the Options menu, you can sign in and out of chat and choose who shows up in your chat list, among other things.

Your name is first in the chat list. From here, you can change your status, set your availability, etc.

Click this arrow for more options.

Let’s set our status to Busy.

We’ll change that back to Available.

With this box, you can search through and find contacts to add or invite to chat.

When you start typing, entries from your Contacts list should appear. At right, you’re given a number of actions that you can perform on that contact.

Click on a contact’s name to switch the actions menu to that person.

Click anywhere in the background to cancel and close the contacts list.

Let’s chat with Demo User. Click on his name.

A chat window will appear in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Click here, type a chat message, then press Enter to send.

Note that this person is currently offline. Messages you send to an offline contact will be delivered when he/she comes online.

When he logged in, the currently offline message disappeared, and his icon changed from grey to green.

When you receive a response, the title bar of the chat area will be highlighted in orange, as will the user’s name in your chat list.

Let’s respond.

You will be notified when the other person is typing a message.

Click the X to close the chat window. It will reappear if he responds again.

Scroll up.

Go to the Settings area.

Open the Chat tab.

There are a number of chat-related settings here. Most of these, you’ll probably want to leave as the defaults.

One useful feature in Gmail is the ability to sign in to an AIM account. This allows you to use Gmail to chat with your buddies on AIM as well as your Gmail chat contacts.

Click Sign into AIM.

You will need an AIM account in order to log in. If you don’t have one, you can get a screen name via this link.

Enter your login info, then click Sign in.

Or, click Cancel.

If you make any changes on this page, be sure to click Save Changes when you’ve finished.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to use the Chat feature in Gmail.

How to import contacts into Gmail

This tutorial will show you how to import contacts from other mail clients into Gmail.

Before you begin, you’ll need a contact list that you exported from your old mail client in CSV or vCard format.

To import the file, go to Contacts.

Click Import.

Use the Browse… button to find your file.

When you’ve found the correct file, double-click to select it.

If you would like for these imported contacts to be added to a group, click this checkbox…

…then choose the group from the list.

To finish, click Import.

That’s it! The four contacts have been imported successfully.

Click OK to return to your contacts.

Here are the four new contacts. They’ve also been added to our Internet Friends group.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to import contacts into Gmail.

How to export contacts from Gmail

In this tutorial, you will learn how to export contacts from Gmail.

Exporting contacts from Gmail is easy. You can export in several different formats, and can even choose to export only certain groups of contacts.

Go to Contacts.

Then click Export.

First, tell Gmail who you want to export. My Contacts contains only those contacts you have added, while All Contacts contains everyone you have ever been in touch with using your Gmail account.

We’ll choose a specific group.

Then, select a format for the export file to be in.

Finally, click Export.

After a moment, a download box should appear. Click OK to save the file to your disk.

That’s it! You’ve successfully exported your contacts from Gmail. Now you just need to import the file into your favorite mail client.

This completes the tutorial. You now know how to export contacts from Gmail.

How to edit your personal information in Gmail

In this tutorial, you will find out how to edit your personal information in Gmail.

Start by going to the Settings page.

Then, open the Accounts and Import tab.

The first thing you can do here is change your Send mail as setting.

Click edit info to do so.

This window will pop up. The default option here is to use your name as specified in your Google account settings.

If you would prefer, use this box to specify something else for your name.

If you want to send mail with a different reply-to address, click this link…

…and enter the address in the text field that appears.

When finished here, click Save Changes.

Your name will update automatically both here and in the Chat display.

You can also configure Gmail to send mail from another address, rather than just sending a different reply-to address. Use this button to do that.

Scroll down.

Most of your personal information is stored under your Google Account settings. Click here to go there.

At right, you can change your account password and password recovery options.

As far as personal information goes, you have two choices. You can either create a detailed public profile, or just edit your personal information.

We won’t create a public profile right now. Click edit your personal info.

To start, we’ll change the First name listed here.

Then, let’s specify a Zip code.

Scroll down.

If you want, you can specify an alternate email address to use for your account.

When finished, click Save.

Click the Back link to return to your Settings page.

That’s it! You now know how to edit your personal information in Gmail.

How to configure your settings in Gmail

In this tutorial, you will learn a little bit about Gmail’s Settings area. If you’ve watched any of the previous demos, you’ve probably seen this area already.

It can be found via the Settings link at the top of every page.

First up is the General tab. This tab contains various settings that control the way Gmail operates.

You can change your Gmail display language using this drop-down menu.

For more language settings, click the Show all language options link.

Here, you can enable Transliteration and support for right-to-left editing.

Next on this tab is the Maximum page size option. The default setting is to show 50 conversations per page.

Let’s change that to 100.

Keyboard shortcuts can help you save time, but they may not work with certain kinds of keyboards.

If you prefer to always connect to Gmail securely, set the Browser connection option to Always use https.

If you want to enter a Signature to append to every message, first click this radio button.

Then type your signature here.

Setting a Vacation responder may be useful if you’re not going to be able to sign in to Gmail for a while. Gmail will send an automated reply to all incoming messages using the Subject and Message you specify here.

When finished here, click Save Changes.

Your Gmail session may need to be restarted, depending on the settings you changed.

Return to the Settings page.

This time, go to Accounts and Import.

We’ve covered much of this page in previous tutorials. Import mail and contacts was covered several tutorials ago, while Send mail as was described in the tutorial directly before the one you’re watching now.

Check mail using POP3 allows you to configure Gmail to check your other mail accounts for mail on a regular basis. New mail will appear automatically in Gmail.

Here, you can also Add additional storage to Gmail. This does cost money, however.

We showed how to change your Google Account settings in the previous tutorial, as well.

The Labels and Filters tabs were covered in previous tutorials, while Forwarding and POP/IMAP, Chat, and Themes will be covered later.

Let’s go to the Web Clips tab.

The Web Clips feature shows Google Sponsored Links, Gmail tips, and custom content at the top of most pages.

It’s enabled by default. Click this checkbox to disable Web Clips.

Now, on to Labs.

Gmail Labs contains experimental features that aren’t quite ready for everyone to use. Features listed here may change, break, or disappear at any time. You can try anything you want here, but remember that it’s at your own risk.

Take note of this link. If you try a Labs feature and have trouble accessing your Inbox, this will disable all Labs features.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now have a good idea what many of the Gmail Settings do, and how to customize them.

How to compose an email message using Gmail

In this tutorial, you will see how to compose an email message in Gmail.

This tutorial assumes you have already logged in to Gmail.

To start writing a new message, click Compose Mail.

Clicking this icon will allow you to compose your message in a new window.

First, use the To field to specify who should receive your message.

Notice — Gmail will suggest possible recipients from your Contacts as you type. If you see the correct person, simply click on his name…

…and he will automatically be added to the list. If you wish to add additional recipients, separate them with a comma.

If you prefer, you can choose from your Contacts list instead of using the autofind functionality. Click the To link and your Contacts will show up in a new window.

Select a contacts category.

Use these links to select All of the contacts listed below or None of them.

You can also search through your contacts using this box.

Or, simply choose one contact at a time.

We don’t need to send this email to the same person twice, so let’s remove the duplicate entry. Simply click on a box…

…and the entry disappears from the list.

Click Done to close this window.

You can also add Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon Copy recipients in a similar fashion. Click the Add Cc and Add Bcc links to use this functionality.

Carbon Copy is meant for listing additional recipients who should not be a primary recipient of this email. The only difference between that and a Blind Carbon Copy is that everyone who gets the email will know who is in the Cc list, while the Bcc list will not be visible to anyone.

Now, let’s give our message a Subject.

If you’d like to Attach a file, click this link to do so.

Now let’s write the body of the message. Scroll down.

Notice that a message has appeared down here informing you that your email in progress has been autosaved to Drafts. Gmail will automatically save a draft of your email every few minutes.

All drafts can be accessed by clicking this link in the menu.

Type your message in this field, as shown.

Since you’ve edited your email, the Saved button has changed to Save Now. Clicking this button will allow you to manually save a draft.

You can also do so by pressing CTRL+S whenever your cursor is in a text field.

Use the menu bar above to apply formatting to your text, or to insert an emoticon or hyperlink.

If you ever question the purpose of a button in the menu bar, you can hover your mouse over the button to see its title.

You may also want to use Gmail’s spellcheck feature. If you’ll be writing in a language other than your default chosen language, just click the arrow to choose the correct language.

Then, click Check Spelling.

Words that have been spelled incorrectly, if any, will be highlighted in yellow.

If you no longer wish to send this message, click Discard.

Otherwise, press the Send button.

If all went well, your message has now been sent.

Click View message to see it.

You can also find this message under Sent Mail, along with any other messages you’ve sent using Gmail.

This completes the tutorial. You now know how to compose and send a message using Gmail.

How to create email filters in Gmail

This tutorial will show you how to create email filters in Gmail. Filters tell Gmail what to do if it encounters mail that meets specific conditions.

To create a filter, click the Create a filter link next to the search bar.

The criteria below are very similar to what you’d see when performing an advanced search.

We’ll use the From field to filter all messages from a specific person. You can use a name or an email address.

To test this filter using your existing mail, click the Test Search button.

Below, the only conversation from this person has shown up.

Now that we’ve tested the filter, click Next Step.

Choose one or more of these actions to tell Gmail what to do when it encounters a message that matches the filter. Note that the actions will be performed in the order they are listed.

Let’s have Gmail automatically Star the message as important.

We’ll also have it apply a label to the message.

Click this checkbox to ensure that emails matching the filter are never sent to Spam.

You might also want to apply the filter to the existing conversations, listed below. Use this checkbox to toggle that feature.

When finished, click Create Filter.

The filter has been created, and you’ve been taken to the Filters tab under Settings.

Use these links to edit or delete a filter.

Return to the Inbox.

To see the final way to create a filter, we’ll open a conversation.

Click the down arrow next to a specific message.

Click Filter messages like this.

This familiar box will appear, pre-populated with the From address of the message. Proceed to create the filter, just as before.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to create and manage filters in Gmail.

How to import mail and contacts from another email account into Gmail

Before you begin manually copying any of your contacts and mail from other email accounts, you should know that Gmail can automatically import mail and contacts from many popular free email providers.

This tutorial will you show you how to use that feature, simply titled Import mail and contacts.

It can be found under Settings.

Go to the Accounts and Import tab.

Then, click Import mail and contacts.

First, tell Gmail the email account you would like to import mail and contacts from.

Click Continue.

Then, enter the account’s password.

Continue.

Next, you need to specify the import options, or just leave it all as the defaults.

By default, Gmail will import all contacts and mail from the account, as well as all new mail the account receives for the next 30 days. All imported mail will be labelled with the account’s email address.

Let’s change the label to simply Yahoo.

When finished here, click Start import.

It could take several hours or even up to 2 days for the import to complete. You will be notified when the import has finished.

Click OK to close this window.

The import we started now shows up under the Import mail and contacts section. You can check on its status here.

To stop an import, click its stop link.

When the import is complete, you’ll receive a notice at the top of Gmail. Its status will also be updated in the same place as before.

Once the initial import has completed, you can still stop the import to prevent any additional mail from being forwarded. All the data the initial import retrieved will remain intact.

Let’s go to the Inbox and verify that our messages have shown up.

Here are two messages, both labelled as Yahoo.

If we view the Yahoo label, they’ll show up there, as well.

Now, we’ll check that our Contacts have shown up.

Here they are. You should note that any contacts that are already in Gmail when the import occurs will not have duplicate entries created.

To dismiss the Import complete message, click Hide.

This completes the tutorial. You now know how to import mail and contacts from another email account into Gmail.

How to invite a friend to Gmail

Back when Gmail was first launched, accounts were given out on an invitation-only basis. This is no longer the case, but you can still invite your friends to Gmail.

Scroll down.

The box we need is entitled Invite a friend.

In this text field, type the email address of someone you’d like to invite to Gmail.

When you start to type, you may see matches appear from your Contacts list. Choose from them, if you want, or continue typing.

Now, you can either click Send Invite or Preview Invite.

We’ll preview ours first.

Here, you can add additional email addresses to send invitations to. You can also add a customized note to the invitation, or leave it as the default.

When ready, click Send Invites.

That’s it! Our invite was sent successfully.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to invite friends to Gmail.

How to create and manage tasks in Gmail

Like many other mail services, Gmail allows you to create a Tasks list. With this feature, you can maintain a sort of To Do list, to remind you of upcoming events and due dates.

In this tutorial, you will see how to create and manage your tasks and task lists in Gmail.

To open the tasks system, click Tasks.

As soon as you open the Tasks window, Gmail will automatically create a new task for you and let you type its name.

Click below the task name or press Enter and you’ll instantly be able to type in another task.

To mark a task as complete, click its checkbox.

Click the arrow to enter further details about this task.

Select a Due date for this task.

Enter a Note about this task here

Scroll down.

If you have more than one task list, select it here and the task will be moved.

When finished, click Back to list.

The date and note you just entered show up here, below the task’s name.

The Actions menu below may be useful to you, at times.

These five functions will only work when you have a task selected.

Click this icon to manage your task lists.

Click here to create a New list.

Enter a name for the list.

Then click OK.

To return to the default list, open the lists menu again.

And select it here.

You can also create a task based on an e-mail conversation.

Minimize the tasks window.

Select a conversation from the list.

Then open up the More actions submenu.

Click Add to Tasks.

Your conversation has now been added to the task list.

You can click the Related email link to view that conversation.

Click the arrow to edit this task.

Everything here should look the same as before, with one exception.

Clicking the X next to Related email will dissociate this task from the email.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to create and manage tasks in Gmail.

How to change your Gmail theme

Themes allow you to control the overall look of Gmail without changing its functionality. Gmail provides a number of default themes, and you can even create your own.

To change your theme, go to Settings.

Open the Themes tab.

The default theme is Bold Blue. As of November 2009, there are 33 other themes for you to choose from.

You can also pick a Random theme or Choose your own colors.

Let’s choose an existing theme. Scroll up.

We’ll pick the Steel theme.

After a moment, your theme will have been changed. Success!

This completes the tutorial. You now know how to change your theme in Gmail.

How to view and reply to email conversations in Gmail

In this tutorial, you will learn a little bit about the unique way Gmail displays your messages.

This tutorial assumes that you are already logged in to Gmail.

Rather than showing a single entry for each individual email, Gmail groups an email together with all replies – sort of like a thread on a forum. This is referred to as a conversation.

As indicated by the (4) aside the first conversation, it contains four messages. The participants in the conversation are listed to the left of that.

To view a conversation, you can click anywhere on its row in the list, except on the controls at left.

Notice that this conversation only contains one message.

Click the Newer link to go to the conversation directly before this one in the Inbox.

The Older link works in a similar fashion.

There are a number of actions that you can perform on this conversation using the buttons directly below; we’ll look at how to use some of these in the tutorials that follow.

Click this link if you want to open the conversation in a New window.

Use this link to Print all messages in the conversation.

Scroll down.

Gmail will collapse all the messages in a conversation that you’ve read before, except for the newest one. Click on a message’s title to expand it.

Or, click Expand all to expand every message in the conversation.

Collapse all reverses that action.

Clicking show details will display some more information about this particular message.

In addition to Reply and Forward, you can also perform a number of actions on a specific email in a conversation.

Click the down arrow button to show these options.

To begin making a reply, you can also click in this textarea…

…and a standard Gmail composition form will appear.

Click Discard if you no longer wish to make a reply.

To return to the Inbox, click the Back to Inbox link.

That’s it! You now know how to view and reply to email conversations in Gmail.

For more information about managing your email messages and conversations, be sure to check out the tutorials that directly follow this one.

How to manage labels in Gmail

You may be surprised to notice that Gmail doesn’t allow you to create folders to store your emails in. Instead, you have the Labels system.

A conversation can have any number of labels applied to it — not just one, as is usually the case with mail clients that use folders.

By default, Gmail has a number of different Labels that can be applied to your conversations, such as Inbox, Sent Mail, Personal, and Travel. Some of these are System labels, while others are Custom labels.

Each custom label has a box next to its name, providing you with a quick way to edit its properties.

Here, you can add or remove a color to a label, allowing you to identify it at a glance. You can also rename, hide, or delete a custom label.

Click on a color to tell Gmail to use it for this label.

Now, let’s hide this label.

Notice that Personal no longer shows up above Travel.

To find it in the menu, click the link entitled 7 more.

Now you can see all the other labels that have been marked as hidden.

Let’s un-hide the Personal label now.

You can Manage labels or Create a new label using the links at the bottom of this popup menu.

Or, do so by first clicking the Settings link in the top right corner of the page…

…and then going to the Labels tab.

System labels are at the top, and you’ll notice that they cannot be removed. All system labels except for Inbox can be shown or hidden.

Let’s show the Spam label. Click its show link.

Notice that Spam is now visible in the main menu, and that the 6 more link has changed to 5 more.

Scroll down.

Here are the Custom labels. All of these can be shown, hidden, or removed to your liking.

Let’s remove the Travel label by clicking here.

Click OK to confirm.

Note that removing a label will not delete the messages with that label; a message that has no labels will still show up under All Mail.

To rename a custom label, simply hover over its title and click into the text field that appears.

To finish editing the label, click off of it or just press Enter.

The labels will be automatically sorted in alphabetic order.

Next, let’s recreate the Travel label using this form.

Click Create.

We’ll also show the Receipts label.

To finish, let’s scroll up and examine our changes.

As you can see, all of the changes we made on this page took effect immediately.

This tutorial is now complete. You’ve seen how to manage labels in Gmail, but watch the tutorials that follow to find out how to put them to use.

How to manage email conversations in Gmail

In the previous tutorial, we showed you how to manage labels in Gmail. Before you find out how to actually apply those labels to conversations, you need to learn how to select and manage conversations.

To begin, you should know the different ways to select conversations in Gmail. First, you can select them one by one.

Use their checkboxes to do that.

We are currently viewing the Inbox, so clicking the All or None links will select or deselect all conversations in the Inbox, respectively.

Read and Unread will select only those conversations that have or have not been read.

Starring a conversation allows you to keep track of those you feel to be more important.

Click the greyed out star next to a conversation to star it.

With that done, we can now take advantage of the Starred and Unstarred selection links to select those conversations that have been starred and those that haven’t.

Now that you know how to select conversations, let’s see what we can do with them once they’ve been selected.

Click More actions.

This submenu allows you to perform a number of useful actions.

Let’s mark this conversation as unread.

Notice that it now shows up in bold.

Now, let’s Archive all the Unstarred conversations.

When you archive conversations, they are no longer visible in the Inbox. They haven’t been deleted or moved to the Trash; they’ll still show up everywhere they would normally, just not in the Inbox.

That means our archived messages will always show up under All Mail.

Here they are, in All Mail. Archived conversations can be moved back to the Inbox using this button.

Next, let’s select the same messages, but this time Delete them, thus moving them to the Trash.

As this message informs us, if we move conversations from All Mail to the Trash, they will no longer be visible anywhere but the Trash. All labels previously applied to the conversations will not work unless they are moved back out of the Trash.

Click OK to proceed.

Let’s find the conversations in the Trash.

With this button you can delete specific messages forever, while Empty Trash now allows you to delete every message that currently resides in the Trash.

You should note that messages that have been in Trash more than 30 days will be automatically deleted.

Google recommends you don’t move conversations to the Trash unless you’re absolutely sure you won’t want them in the future; instead, use the Archive feature. With over seven gigabytes of storage available to every Gmail account, you’re more than capable of keeping every single message ever sent or received by your account.

We’ll move these back to the Inbox. First, select each one.

Then, click in this area, hold down the mouse button, and drag the cursor over to the inbox.

You should see a message pop up underneath your cursor indicating how many conversations you’re dragging — in our case, three.

Now let go of the mouse button.

The conversations now reside in the Inbox. Go there now.

You should also know how to report a conversation as spam.

Simply choose one in the list…

…then click Report spam.

Notice that Spam now has one unread message in it.

Spam functions similarly to Trash. You have a Delete forever button plus a Delete all spam messages now link. Messages that have been in Spam for more than 30 days will automatically be deleted — just like with Trash.

If you have incorrectly marked a message as spam, the Not spam button will be of assistance.

Choose the message.

Then click Not spam.

The conversation has been unmarked as spam and moved back to the Inbox.

You should note that all of the management buttons will function exactly the same way when viewing a conversation. Having already selected a conversation by viewing it, the buttons will function right away.

For example… open a conversation.

All of these actions will function using the conversation that is currently open.

This completes the tutorial. You now know how to manage conversations in Gmail. To find out how to put all the knowledge from the past two tutorials together, watch the tutorial that follows.

How to use labels in Gmail

This tutorial will show you how to use labels in Gmail to organize your email conversations.

If you’ve seen the previous two tutorials, you should know what labels are and how to manage them, and how to manage conversations. If you haven’t watched the previous tutorials, we recommend that you do so before proceeding with this one.

The Move to and Labels submenus in the actions menu, directly below, are the two ways you have to label conversations.

To use either, you must first select at least one conversation.

We’ll start with the Labels submenu. Click this button to activate it.

Here, you can choose one or more of your existing labels to apply to the selected conversation(s). The search box may be useful if you have many labels.

You can also create new labels and go to the label management area using these links.

Let’s label the selected conversation as both Business and Personal.

Click Apply.

This conversation has now been labelled Business and Personal. You can see its labels here, next to its title.

If you watched the first tutorial on Labels, you will have seen how to change a label’s color. Let’s do that again now, to show you its usefulness.

Click here.

Choose a color.

Notice — the color has changed here, too.

Next, let’s see a shortcut method for applying a single label.

Deselect this conversation, and select the two beneath that.

Open Labels.

This time, instead of clicking on the checkbox next to the label, click on its name.

Now, let’s see how Gmail treats a selection wherein not all conversations have the same labels.

Select this conversation.

Instead of showing a checkmark in the box next to each label, a line is displayed to let us know that some but not all of the conversations use this label.

Simply click the box as before to apply a label to all selected conversations…

…and the line becomes a checkmark.

Click Apply.

The Move to feature is similar to the Labels feature, the difference being that Move to will remove the label we are currently viewing (Inbox) from the conversation and replace it with the one we choose.

To demonstrate, let’s select the only conversation that hasn’t been labelled yet. Click None.

Select this conversation.

Open Move to.

As you can see, this has the same basic layout as the Labels submenu. The checkboxes have been removed — you can only move a conversation from one label to one other. We’re also now able to move conversations to Spam and Trash (these weren’t listed under Labels).

We’ll move this conversation to Travel.

Another way to move a conversation is to drag it over to the label in the menu.

Click and drag this conversation over to Personal.

Let go of the mouse once the label is highlighted.

There is one last way to manage a conversation’s labels. Open a conversation.

At the top of the conversation, you can see a list of labels with an X next to each.

Click a label’s X to remove it from this conversation.

If instead you click on the label’s name…

…you’ll be taken to a list of all conversations that share that label.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to use labels in Gmail.

How to search for messages in Gmail

This tutorial will show you the basics of performing a search in Gmail.

Just like with Google searches, search queries in Gmail can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be, so we won’t be able to cover everything.

To start, let’s perform a search for the word definitely, which appears right here in our latest email conversation.

Type your search queries in this text box, located at the top of every page in Gmail.

Then, click the Search Mail button.

Your search results will be displayed below, as if you were viewing your Inbox or some other label’s contents.

You should recognize all of the action buttons at the top and bottom of the results box. These will function exactly as you were shown in the previous tutorials, as will everything else you see.

Now, let’s perform another search. The next word in that email is takes, so we’ll try searching for take.

The new results show up here, but our message isn’t part of the results. This is because Gmail searches are more specific than your typical web search. For example, if you want to find all emails containing the word takes, you must search for takes and not any variations like take in order for it to work.

To finish, we’ll show you how to make an advanced search. Click Show search options.

With these options, you have more control over the search results that are returned. We’ll test out the From field.

Enter a name or email address.

You also have the ability to limit where you want the search to be performed.

Of note is the Mail and Spam and Trash Option. Unless you choose this option, Gmail won’t display search results labelled as Spam or Trash.

We’ll leave ours set to All Mail.

Now, click Search Mail as before.

It worked! The only conversation containing mail from Demo User has shown up.

As this message indicates, even if you don’t choose Mail and Spam and Trash, you’ll still be informed if Gmail finds a match in your Trash. This won’t happen for Spam, though.

This tutorial is now complete. You now know how to perform a search in Gmail.

How to create a new Google Account

Since its inception in 2004, Gmail has steadily risen in popularity. It is now used by millions across the world to send emails of all sorts, whether personal or business-related.

To use Gmail, you’ll need to create a Google Account. Let’s see how to create one now.

In your browser, navigate to gmail.com.

Look down the page.

Click the Create an account button.

If you already have a Google Account, you do not need to create another one to use Gmail. Simply click the sign in here link.

As stated below, not only will this account give you access to Gmail, but also to many of Google’s other popular services.

Enter your First and Last names.

Type your Desired Login Name.

Then, click this button to check its availability.

As you can see, the requested login name is not available.

If you want, choose from one of the available usernames listed below…

…or, try your luck again.

Our second choice is available.

Now, Choose a password. It will need to be at least 8 characters in length and of sufficient strength.

Re-enter your password.

Indicate if you would like to Stay signed in or Enable Web History, then scroll down.

Next, choose and answer a Security Question.

Entering a Secondary email address if you have one can help if you ever have problems with your Gmail account in the future.

You should update the Location field to reflect your country of residence.

In order to prevent automated account creation, you must enter the verification text.

Clicking this icon will play back an audio clip of the text being read, for the vision impaired (or if the picture is simply too hard to read).

In order to proceed, you must first agree to the Terms of Service. Read through the terms, if you like.

If you accept the terms, click this button to create your account.

If successful, you will receive a Congratulations message, along with a quick run through of some of Gmail’s unique features.

When ready, click Show me my account.

That’s it! Your Gmail account has been created and is now ready to be used. Watch the tutorials that follow to find out how.

How to manage your contacts in Gmail

In this tutorial, you will find out how to manage your Contacts list in Gmail.

It can be found via the Contacts link, over here.

This is your Contacts list. Here, you can add, edit, and remove contacts, and put them into groups. You can also Search through your contacts, Import and Export contacts, and even Print your contacts.

If there is anyone that you’re frequently in touch with that isn’t already in your Contacts, Gmail will suggest that you add them to your Contacts. To see Gmail’s suggestions, click the View Suggestions button, below.

Right now, we only have one contact in our list. Let’s view his information.

Click the contact’s name.

Here you can see all the information we entered for this contact.

To add this contact to a group, use the Groups menu.

Choose from an existing group, or create a new one.

We’ll name our new group Internet Friends.

Click OK to create the group and add this contact.

The new group has appeared here, along with an indicator that there is 1 person in it.

To a view a list of recent conversations with this contact, click the Show link.

Press your browser’s Back button to return to the Contacts list.

To edit this contact’s information, click the Edit button.

The form is pre-filled with the contact’s information. Change whatever you want, then click the Save button when finished.

Now, let’s add a new contact.

If you’re in the middle of editing a contact when you try to create a new one, Gmail will remind you that unsaved changes will be lost unless you save.

Click OK to tell Gmail it’s all right that we haven’t saved.

The form has been reset and is ready for us to input our new contact’s information.

Start with the Name.

All other fields are optional, but adding a contact isn’t very useful if you don’t enter at least some additional information.

Type an email address here.

Clicking the add link next to many of these fields will give you space to type additional entries.

Let’s also add a phone number for this contact.

Then an address.

The Add button down here is another way for you to add additional fields of the same type as above, as well as a few other kinds.

When finished inputting the contact’s information, click Save.

If you hover over a contact’s image, you’ll be given a link to change it.

Finally, to delete a contact, click this button.

Note that you cannot undo a contact deletion.

Click OK to acknowledge this.

The contact has been deleted.

This completes the tutorial. You now know how to manage contacts in Gmail. Find out how to Import and Export contacts in the two tutorials that follow.

How to log in to Gmail with your Google Account

If you already have a Google Account, you can use it to log in to Gmail.

Use your browser’s location bar to go to gmail.com.

Enter your Username. Putting @gmail.com on the end is not necessary.

Then, enter your Password.

By default, you will be set to Stay signed in. Deactivate this checkbox if you would prefer to be logged out automatically.

To finish, click Sign in.

You have now been logged in to your Google Account and taken to your Gmail inbox.

To Sign out, simply click this link.

This completes the tutorial. You now know how to log in to Gmail using your Google Account.