Yes, we all love Gmail. I thought I will never switch from Yahoo! Mail but seeing the features and tools that Gmail was providing I just couldn’t resist myself. Whenever I see someone using Yahoo! Mail or MSN Hotmail, I just could not get that why they are still on those old ones. It’s time to AJAX. So, here I come with some cool Gmail Tips and Tricks.

Send mail using the username only

You can send email to other gmail ids by just writing the gmail username in To, BCC or CC spot, no need to write “@gmail.com”. So, this feature saves a lot of time and thus pretty handy.

With or without (.), It’s no issue with Gmail

You own a gmail id first.second@gmail.com, now you wish to leave that period (.) between the first and last name. There is no need to register a new gmail id. Gmail is very flexible with periods (dots). So that means “firstsecond@gmail.com” is just same as “first.second@gmail.com”. You can give it a try by sending a mail to yourself but including a dot in the id (place that anywhere in your gmail id). It really works.

Case insensitive Gmail

Gmail is also flexible with case of letters. Uppercase letters are equivalent to lowercase letters in the gmail id. That make sense because username is an identity, and should be unique no matter it’s upper case or lower case.

Always click logout

Always close gmail by clicking sign out link, closing the gmail tab does not logs you out of the gmail. This is an important security step you should always take, especially when you are using Gmail on someone else’s computer or if your system is used by many people.

You can suggest some more gmail tricks by contacting me.

For low speed connections logging in to orkut or gmail could becomes an irritating task. You must have experienced gmail login problem especially on a dial up connection. Login in to gmail is comparatively slower because of its rich user interface, because of that sometimes the gmail login screens gives an error. And in orkut also sometimes the login box does not appears and says “connection timed out” or “server not responding” kind of messages. Following are some tips and tricks to login into gmail and orkut faster even with low speed internet connections.

Gmail login tricks

- Use HTML version of gmail instead of standard version. You can access to gmail’s HTML version directly from this url http://mail.google.com/mail/h/
- Also try gmail mobile version via http://m.gmail.com ,it is very lo-fi version of gmail but the speed of logging in really fast, it is opening instantly on my system. The mobile version of gmail login page is simple, fast and furious. So no more gmail login problems now.

Orkut login tricks

- Directly open the small orkut login box from this url, it will skip the homepage of the orkut which consists of some images and worthless text. It really works, so try it

Gtalk Emoticon is a firefox extension that lets you add emoticon while you are chatting in an in browser chat session of google talk. Almost all the MSN and Yahoo messenger emoticons are supported. It has been successfully tested on firefox 1.5 and 2.0,

-Download Gtalk Emoticons Firefox addon from https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4151/

- Or you may like to read more about this extension here

• C: Compose new message.
• Shift + C: Open new window to compose new message.
• Slash (/): Switch focus to search box.
• K: Switch focus to the next most recent email. Enter or “O” opens focused email.
• J: Switch focus to the next oldest email.
• N: Switch focus to the next message in the “conversation.” Enter or “O” expands/collapses messages.
• P: Switch focus to the previous message.
• U: Takes you back to the inbox and checks for new mail.
• Y: Various actions depending on current view:
• Has no effect in “Sent” and “All Mail” views.
• Inbox: Archive email or message.
• Starred: Unstar email or message.
• Spam: Unmark as spam and move back to “Inbox.”
• Trash: Move back to “Inbox.”
• Any label: Remove the label.
• X: “Check” an email. Various actions can be performed against all checked emails.
• S: “Star” an email. Identical to the more familiar term, “flagging.”
• R: Reply to the email.
• A: Reply to all recipients of the email.
• F: Forward an email.
• Shift + R: Reply to the email in a new window.
• Shift + A: Reply to all recipients of the email in a new window.
• Shift + F: Forward an email in a new window.
• Shift + 1 (!): Mark an email as spam and remove it from the inbox.
• G then I: Switch to “Inbox” view.
• G then S: Switch to “Starred” view.
• G then A: Switch to “All Mail” view.
• G then C: Switch to “Contacts” view.
• G then S: Switch to “Drafts” view.