Remote email access: Gmail

03 Sep 2013

Having access to your email no matter where you are is made a whole lot simpler by using cloud accounts such as Gmail.

Gmail is a free email service provided by Google that allows users to access their email via secure webmail on a computer, and via an application on smart devices.

Open an account

1. Head to www.gmail.com
2. In the top right corner, click the orange box ‘Create an account’
3. Fill in the required details. The form will help you along the way by telling you what is required and what you don’t necessarily have to fill out at this stage.
4. A pop-up screen will appear, click ‘Continue to Gmail’.

The first time you’re redirected to your inbox, a pop-up box will offer a quick tour of Gmail’s key features.

Inbox tags

Gmail has just refreshed its look so it automatically sorts your incoming emails for you.

Three tabs are pre-set: Primary, Social and Promotions.

This can be changed if you wish and you also have the ability to add more pre-set tabs to your inbox.

The Primary tab includes messages from people in your contacts list. Gmail will also index emails here that do not fall into any particular category.

Any emails you receive from deal or offer sites and any other promotional emails will fall under the Promotions tab.

The Social tab is where all emails from your social networks will appear.

Other categories include Updates, where confirmations, receipts and bills will appear, and Forums which will feature messages from any mailing lists that you’re subscribed to and discussion boards.

To manage your labels, click the cog button in the top right, just underneath your email address, and scroll down to ‘Configure Inbox’.
If you just want to add another tab, hit the plus button situated next to Promotions.

Other settings

To check or change any settings in your account, click the cog button underneath your email address, and scroll down to ‘Settings’.

Here you’ll find all the different ways you can personalise your email screen from changing fonts and mail notifications right through to the theme of your inbox.

Keeping things organised

If you’d like to create different folders to organise your emails and files, head over to the side panel under the orange ‘Compose’ button.

1. Under ‘Drafts’ there is a ‘More’ button, click that.
2. At the bottom, there are two blue options, ‘Manage labels’ and ‘Create new label’. To create a brand new folder, select ‘Create new label’. Alternatively, if you’d like to have a clearer view of what your folders look like before creating a new one, select ‘Manage labels’. You’ll be taken to a new screen where all of your labels and folders will be detailed.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and there will be a ‘Create new label’ option. A pop-up box will appear.
4. Title your label. If you plan to have it as a secondary folder underneath an already existing label, just tick the ‘Nest label under’ box and select the existing label from the drop down menu.

Other features

Gmail makes it really easy to compose a message while still keeping your inbox in sight. Rather than transferring you to another screen, a pop-up box will appear in the bottom right corner.

There’s also a handy ‘Drive’ where you can store files and access them from any computer.

Another really handy feature is the ‘Undo send’ option.

1. Head to your settings and select ‘Labs’ from the top banner options. Here, there are a whole lot of experimental features that aren’t quite ready for official release. While this may sound worrying, there’s no real threat by using them, they are just still in the testing phase.
2. Scroll down to ‘Undo send’.
3. The ‘disable’ circle will be highlighted blue. All you have to do is click the ‘Enable’ circle.

When you compose your message and hit ‘send’ a box will appear at the top of your screen that says ‘Your message has been sent.’

Next to this, an ‘Undo’ button will be displayed for 10 seconds, giving you time to undo the send if you make a mistake.