Below are some tips that you may not know or may not use that you can use in order to make using Google’s GMail service better than it already is.

Labels

Rather than using folders to organize e-mails, GMail allows you to organize your e-mails using labels, which are located next to the subject of an e-mail. GMail has a few default labels, such as “Personal” and “Travel” that you can use to categorize e-mails, or you have the option to create your own labels.

If you would like to mark a message with a particular label, you can do so by clicking on the check box next to the message and clicking on the desired label from the list of labels, which you can see by clicking on the “Label” button in the GMail interface. You can also drag an e-mail into a specific label category in the sidebar of your GMail account.

A message can have more than one label, so that you can categorize it in multiple ways.

You can also change the color of the labels that you’re using, so that you can see who a message may be from or what you labeled it as, without having to read each label.

Themes

Another great feature of GMail is the ability to change the theme of the GMail interface. If you would like to change your GMail account’s theme, you can do so by going to “Settings” and then to “Themes”.

Once you have clicked on "Themes”, you can choose from a variety of different themes, such as different colored themes, as well as other themes, such as a beach theme, a mountain theme, a pebbles theme, and more.

You can even choose your own theme colors if you would like to by clicking on the button that says “Choose your own colors”.

Chat

GMail also allows people to chat with other GMail or Google Chat users from within the GMail interface. If you have an AIM account, GMail also allows you to sign in and chat with your contacts who are using AIM from within the GMail interface.

Accounts

If you have other e-mail accounts that are not with GMail, you can import your contacts from those accounts into your GMail contacts list.

GMail also allows you to retrieve e-mail from other e-mail accounts that you may have, so that you don’t have to check multiple e-mail accounts.

Hopefully this post has informed you of some GMail features that you may not have known about or may not be using.

If you don’t have a GMail account, you can sign up for one for free at GMail.com.