Google Mail – Personal Use
With over 146 million users, as of June 2009, Google Mail has proved itself world wide to be one of the best email platforms available.
Also known as Gmail the service is provided by Google free of charge for personal usage with over 7 gigabytes of storage, almost unlimited storage really and with hundreds of others features there is more than enough to keep any body happy.
I have used Google Mail (Gmail) for both personal and professional reasons and have gained many thoughts and opinions about its use. During the rest of this post I hope to express as many of my thoughts as possible on using Gmail as a personal mail service.
The Platform
Well the Gmail platform itself loads almost instantly on all OS and browsers which I have used it on. When you click on something again it loads extremelly quickly with the only lag being provided by a shared broadband connection to my house.
Even with all the preset Gmail tools and widgets I still see no lagging and the system is designed in such a way that you can quickly tidy and remove any widgets which are un-needed.
Using Gmail
With most of my email removed from visibility and all others within folders we get to see just how basic the design really is. Everything has been put exactly where you want it and you need only look for a second to find what you are looking for.
Not only this but it is all in simple words, that explain their function, for instance Compose Mail tells you exeactly its purpose. Sending an email is also quick and easy to do.
If you have the persona you are emailing in your contacts you only need to type in a fe letters of their name/email address and Gmail can autocomplete the rest. All email tools that you are need are shown in a single small toolbar which with one click can be hidden and the email formatted to "plain text" rather than HTML.
Gmail Extras
Gmail has a few things that most of us would call extras already put into their main system but they also have a "Lab" where new addons and extras are created and tested so that users can have new parts added to their account to make it meet their needs and feel custom.
A top Gmail edit is the ability to theme. By theme I mean change the colour and style of the page. For instance if Gmail came in a pink theme guys may not want this and may want to change it so they would change their theme. It is a very basic but also a very important tool, it allows users to have a more custom feel and be more comfortable looking at and using the Gmail system.
Canned responses are one of my favourite default features on Gmail. A canned response is used when you get hundreds (or just lots) of emails which require the same reply. You simply write the reply once and save it as a canned message you can then quickly select the message and it will be sent as the email. Saving you much time.
The Storage
The storage provided by Google for each user using the Gmail is, i believe, probably the largest amount given by anyone for free. With over 7.3 gigabytes of storage for your emails and their attatchements it is fair to say that 99.9% of people will never fill their storage more than 10%.
But the huge amount of storage for me helped to show the power of the system and also gave me the freedom to know I had "room to play".
Probably the most astounding part of the storage levels is that it continuously rises. Google are continuously improving the amount of space given to each users, the amount is probably only 1mb a day. This 1mb a day would on its on be able to store most users daily emails.
The picture above was a screenshot with 2 minutes between each shot.
In Conclusion
Well my conclusion to this post would be that Gmail is an amazing system and one that I really do think you should try. Their is nothing to loose by trying but there is so much to gain, a quick and simple to use email client which is constantly being improved and upgraded.
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