I don’t totally hate my Gmail anymore.
My Gmail account and I have been together for at least 4 years. Probably longer.
But I tolerated it. I thought it was slow, pedantic and not nearly as slick as my Yahoo! email account.
My Yahoo! email and I have been together for a long time–since the 90s. I keep my Yahoo! around because it is dependable, reliable and always remembers to take out the trash. And its great at keeping spam away. It takes care of the shoes, make-up, books, movies and clothes that I buy.
But then I wanted another email for more personal relationships. So I picked up a Gmail account. All my friends like Gmail. Before I knew it, five years had passed.
Functional and straight-forward, my Gmail still drove me crazy.
Until now.
After reading an SAI blog, I went to the Gmail Labs (hit the cog in the right-hand corner of your Gmail account and then drop down and hit “Labs”) and downloaded a few of its latest features:
  1. A Preview Pane: Alleluia! That in itself was worth the price of admission. Geesh. Why do they hide this stuff???
  2. Email Count Icon: This little doo-hickey slaps the number of unopened emails into the tab bar.
  3. Auto-Advance: The thing I hated most about Gmail? Every time I deleted a message it threw me back to the main in-box instead of the next message. Now, with this thing-a-ma-jig, I can set Gmail to focus on the next, or older, email. Be still my heart!
  4. Preview Inbox: This feature really set me spinning in my happy chair. It used to be that it seemed to take forEVer–ok, really, just 1-20 seconds–for my Gmail to load. But with the Preview Inbox, I immediately get to see what’s in my inbox before my box is available. It is the little things, isn’t it?
Those are just of a few of the features available and the only ones I picked.
But let me tell you: I don’t hate my Gmail anymore. In fact, I might kinda like it now. Who knows, with time, maybe I could grow to love it.
What can I say? In my life time I have learned that some eMails are just more evolved than others . . .
And maybe I did a little changing too. 😉