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For those of us who live in our Gmail inbox (inside of Google Apps of course) and who have done so for years know that it can be difficult to find a specific email that occurred within a specific time period; especially if it is a commonly occurring word.
My frustration at having to page through page after page of results lead me to search a little bit on the web for the answer and discovered the before: and after: search modifiers.
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*UPDATE*: 9/25/2019 to reflect changes in Google’s signup process
Note that the below directions still work but you also now get here easily from a Sign In link on any Google page. Just click on “Sign In” link and on the dialog box, click “Create account”
This will take you to the screens mentioned below:
*UPDATED*: 4/29/2013 to reflect changes in Google’s signup process
Want to join Google+? Have been invited to to join a Google Hangout or edit a Google doc or spreadsheet? What do you do if you don’t already have a Google Account to access these services? If you are one of the lucky few who use an email account that is serviced by Google Apps, then you are good to go as most Google services now support Google Apps accounts. But what do you do if your email address is @hotmail.com or @yahoo.com? Well never fear, we can show you how to get a Google Account without creating a Gmail account (address).
By goint to https://accounts.google.com/newaccount (as shown below) you’ll be able to not only sign up for a new Google Account, but they make it easier than ever to do so using your existing email address.
I was doing some research lately in order to help a client set up their Google Apps (Gmail) account set up as the default mail client in Vista lately when I found a link on About.com that states:
Unfortunately, you cannot set the Gmail web interface as your default email program in Windows Vista. You can set up Gmail in an email program such as Windows Mail, though, and thus send from your
This statement couldn?t be further from the truth. If you have the Google Talk application installed on your computer, you?ll have the option to map your logged in account to be default email when you click on mailto: links in your web browsers. Email links work great in IE, Chrome and Firefox; launching Gmail, or if you are logged into Google Talk using a Google Apps account it will launch Gmail for your domain, using the default browser.
The process is to open Google Talk application and go to Settings. In the General section, you?ll see the option to ?Open Gmail when I click on email links?; just select that and you are in business.
Yet another reason why moving your business, and your life over to Google Apps and living in the cloud is a great idea! Let us help you move your life into the cloud.
Yes, I crow the advantages of using Google Apps in small to medium sized-businesses and that MOST people can effectively replace Outlook and just use the fantastic tools available with Google Apps to accomplish this and still be effective in their jobs. However, I still haven?t cut that cord myself. There were a number of compelling reasons why not and Google, thanks to the boffins at Google Labs, have knocked down one more barrier for me, and perhaps for you as well.
I?ve always relied very heavily on the Tasks feature in Outlook to help keep me on track and ensure I don?t miss any important deadlines. Most of these are initiated by emails and are just a quick CTRL-SHIFT K away. Now, the Gmail team has added Tasks as an option that you can turn on via Google Labs in Gmail interface (the normal as well as the Google Apps version). Not familiar with Labs? It should show up as a tab in your Settings page of Gmail. Or, you can use the quick link icon at the top of any Gmail page: 
Once in the Labs tab of Gmail Settings, you turn on Tasks by clicking Enable in the following section:
They also offer you some tips on accessing and using your tasks:
Once you?ve created a task, you?ll see your Task list floating on the page along with your inbox. You?ll see that you can mark a task completed, you can pop out the task list into a new window, there is a quick link to the Related Email as well. Y
ou?ll find an Actions menu that allows you to prioritize your tasks by moving them up and down, indent them (or not) to create hierarchies, Edit the details of the task as well as hide and show what you?ve accomplished. Clicking on the plus sign will add a new task; the trash can will delete the selected task as you?d imagine. Lastly, under the list icon at the lower left of the task pane, you?ll find another menu that allows you to Refresh, Rename or Delete the current list as well as to create a new list. Once you have multiple lists, you?d use this menu to switch between them.
The only item that is missing (and hopefully will get added soon) is the ability to add a deadline and have an alarm go off (email or otherwise) when a deadline or time before a deadline is reached. They are just soooo close.
In case you were wondering, what is the number one thing that is keeping me from completely dumping Outlook at this stage? Well, I?m managing to many simultaneous mailboxes throughout the day to have to log in and out of each one (or to keep different browsers open for each identity) so until I either simplify my life or I come up with a better solution, I may be stuck with Outlook.
Any thoughts, suggestions, complaints? Please use the comments form below to tell me what you think!
One of the things that has kept me from moving from Outlook to using Gmail as my primary email interface (besides being able to aggregate a bunch of different addresses into a single interace) has been the lack of canned responses.
Well, it looks like this is no longer a problem. According to Google engineer Chad Perry in this posting on The Official Gmail Blog, they have finally added this feature!
If you’re sick of typing out the same reply every time someone emails you with a common question, now you can compose your reply once and save the message text with the "Canned responses" button. Later, you can open that same message and send it again and again.
You can even combine this with filters to set up autoresponders.
Gmail already lets you create filters based on a combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more in your incoming messages. Turn on Canned Responses in Labs, and you can set a filter to grab one of your saved responses, create an automated reply, and hit the Send button for you.
The addition of Canned Responses to Filter Actions opens up the door for much greater use of this tool for businesses! If you are using Google Apps and want some help figuring out how to implement this in your business, drop us a line.
As always, your comments are welcome (and encouraged) below!