How to access your Gmail offline

What if you are in a situation where there is no network to connect to internet and check your email or say, you are in a train, you are asked for soft copy of your online reserved ticket and there is no network? Well, you don’t have to be in such worst case

if you can have access to your email. Either you can download your ticket, any attachment, email from Gmail or save your entire Gmail for offline access. But how to access your Gmail offline?

Just follow the following steps and you will have all your email, attachments etc ready all the time.

• Login to Chrome Store on your Chrome browser.
• Search for ‘Gmail Offline’ and install this app.
• After installation, launch this app and a new tab will open as shown.
• You will  be prompted for offline access.
• Allow offline mail storage.
• Depending on the number of messages and attachment size etc, it will take some time to download and sync data.

Remember not to go for Gmail offline on public computers. Gmail offline will be installed on your browser. You can work with your Gmail offline as soon as the app is installed, and it will sync with your online Gmail in the background when there is network connection. Just uninstall this app to remove all the offline data. This works well with the poor internet connection as well just like your mobile Gmail with 2G network. Give it a try.

Getting started with Boomerang for Gmail on Android

Want to get reminders to answer an e-mail later without adding it to your calendar? Need to make sure someone follows up with your e-mail questions? This app can help you streamline the process between your desktop and Android device.

Boomerang is a service that works with your Gmail to send e-mail later, give you follow-up reminders, and notify you if you don't hear back within a specific time. To use the service in the past, you had to install an extension for Chrome or Firefox.

Now there's Boomerang for Gmail on Android, an app that allows you to use all of the same features you expect from the Web versions on your smartphone or tablet.

One big reason for using the app alongside the desktop version is that you don't have to wait until you're at your desk to schedule an e-mail or a reminder about an e-mail.

Ready to test it out? You'll need to install a copy of Boomerang: Email App for Gmail on your Android device.

When you open the app, you'll be greeted with the option to sign in using a Google account. After signing in, a slideshow tutorial will load highlighting the features of the Boomerang app.

To start using the features specific to Boomerang, you'll need to either write a message or select one you want to work with. If you're writing a message, you can decide when to send it by pressing the Send Later button at the top of the app.

You can use the Boomerang option to alert you if no response is received within a specific amount of time. The Boomerang option can also be used for new messages, if you don't feel like dealing with them right now, but want to receive a reminder about them later.

The Settings menu for the app is particularly small, only letting you adjust actions for left and right swiping. Actions to choose from include archive, delete, and other message actions like the Boomerang option itself.

You may notice that two new labels are created in your Gmail account, one for Boomerang and one for Boomerang-Outbox, both of which are used to track your messages with the service. Also, the style of the inbox is very different-looking from the stock Gmail app. Sender names, subject lines, and excerpts from messages are displayed in what Google would call "comfortable" space. This will either make the mail list easier to read or annoy you with wasted space.

Keep in mind that this app is brand new, so there's going to be a few kinks that need to be worked out. If you have an issue, Boomerang responds to user feedback very often, as seen by the app entry on Google Play.

Even though the current app only supports Gmail, Boomerang has stated that it will support services such as Outlook, Yahoo, and others in the future.

Five power-user tools in Gmail for Android

Though it's not nearly as robust as the Web version, Gmail for Android packs a good number of tools that, when utilized correctly, can make managing e-mail on the go a little less painful. And, when mastered, they'll even increase your productivity.

Gmail veteran or not, dig through this guide to uncover understated workflow tips, along with some of the not-so-obvious features you may have missed. And, hey, maybe you'll finally achieve that mythical "Inbox Zero."

1. Use search the right way.
Search is one heck of a powerful tool that often masquerades as a simple feature. If you're using it to surface specific e-mails, you're probably doing it wrong. Effective searching involves picking up a few of Gmail's advanced search operators. For instance, the label it's under, who the recipient was, or if there's an attachment. You can even go as far as using keywords in combination with one or more of these operators, separated by commas or spaces. Here's an example:

bake sale,in:sent,newer_than:2d

In this example, Gmail will look for a message with the keywords "bake sale" in your Sent folder, sent within the last two days. For the complete list of search operators, visit this Google support page.

Tip: Still can't find what you're looking for? It might not be synced. Go to Gmail (on Android) > Settings > Your e-mail account > Days of mail to sync, and adjust this number to display older messages.

2. Use the two-finger selection trick.
In the latest iteration of Gmail, the check boxes are no longer. Instead, tapping the image to the left of an e-mail selects it. But what if you (rightfully) changed the settings to hide those images?

To go into selection mode, long-press an e-mail. Better yet, if you're applying changes to multiple e-mails, you can long-press two e-mails (adjacent or not) to select them at the same time.

And yes, you guessed it: you can also long-press with three fingers (but we don't necessarily like to encourage such awkward behaviors.)

3. Fine-tune notifications.
It's a well-known fact: notifications can absolutely kill your productivity. On the one hand, they ensure that you'll never miss a message from your boss; on the other hand, dinner should never be interrupted for a shoe sale.

An underutilized feature, Gmail for Android lets you fine-tune notifications so that you only receive alerts for specific labels. Here's how.

4. Train Gmail to be smarter.
When you receive a message Gmail thinks is important, you'll see it land in your "Priority Inbox" flagged with a yellow arrow (or a couple of yellow arrows). Most of the time, Gmail is surprisingly accurate, but other times, you'll see undeserving e-mails marked as priority messages.

By monitoring your inbox behavior, Gmail will get better with its assumptions over time, but if you want to train this puppy a little faster, force it to learn.

Sure, it's an extra step, but it'll be well worth the effort when Gmail accurately categorizes your messages so you can sort through your inbox a little faster.When you receive a message marked as important, and it's not, select it, then tap the menu button in the upper-right corner and select "Mark not important." Alternatively, let Gmail know a message should be marked as important by selecting it and choosing "Mark important" from the menu.

5. Zip through messages.
Once you archive (or delete) a message, Gmail immediately returns to your inbox. But if you want to hustle, and get through your inbox a little faster, have Gmail take you to your next-newest message.

To do so, launch the app and head to Menu > Settings > General Settings > Auto-advance. Here, choose Newer, or Older if you prefer

Transfer your Gmail Messages to Another Email Address

If you are however planning to transfer your existing Gmail messages to another email service that doesn’t support POP3 based importing, you can make use of a simple Google Script that will auto-forward all your old messages, one by one, to your new email address.

How to Transfer Gmail Messages – Step by Step

To configure the script, log on to your old Google account and then follow these steps:

1. Click here to copy the Mail Forwarding sheet to your Google Drive (associated with old Gmail Address).
2. You’ll see a new Gmail menu in the Google Sheet. Choose Gmail -> Authorize to allow the script to access your Gmail account.
3. Once the script has been authorized, choose Gmail -> Transfer and type your new email address where the old messages are to be auto-forwarded.

The Google Script will now run in the background and will auto-forward every single message from your old @gmail.com address to the new one. The script will add the label “cloned” to all the threads that have been successfully forwarded. This is required to keep track of messages that have been processed.

The transfer process, depending upon the size of your mailbox, may take a few days to complete because of Gmail’s daily sending limit. The messages in the Trash, Spam and your Sent Items folders are ignored.

How to Use Twitter as a Gmail Notifier

Did you know that you can follow your Gmail account on Twitter and get notified (via tweets) as soon as new email messages arrive in your Gmail mailbox. And these are private tweets that will be only visible to you.

You can also use this trick as a workaround to receive SMS alerts for important Gmail messages on your mobile phone through Twitter. You will only have to turn on mobile notifications for the Twitter account that will be tweeting your Gmail mailbox.

There’s no programming required and you can get started in 5 minutes. I have updated this tutorial for Twitter API 1.1 and it is takes fewer steps to setup.

Use Twitter as a Gmail Notifier with Google Scripts

Gmail does provide an RSS feed of your inbox but the problem is that if you have to auto-publish the Gmail’s default RSS feed to Twitter, you’ll have to supply your Google account credentials in plain text. That’s risky.

The following solution uses OAuth to connect your Gmail and Twitter accounts so you don’t have to share your passwords with anyone. There’s a Google Apps Script that monitors your Gmail mailbox in the background and as soon as a new message arrives in your account, the script sends out a tweet. That’s the big picture and here’s how you can implement this solution:

Step A: Create a new Twitter App for Gmail

1. Go to twitter.com/signup and create a new Twitter account for your Gmail Inbox – mine is called myGmailInbox.
2. Confirm your email address, then open the Twitter settings page and check the option “Protect My Tweets.” This will make your Gmail notifications private and neither search engines nor other Twitter users will be able to see tweets generated through Gmail.
3. Go to dev.twitter.com, sign-in using your new Twitter account and create a New Twitter App.
4. You may give your Twitter app any name, description while https://spreadsheets.google.com/macros will be the Callback URL.
5. Make sure there are no empty spaces in the URL fields else Twitter may give an “Invalid URL format” warning. Accept the terms and conditions, fill in the CAPTCHA and submit the form to create your first Twitter application.
6. Next go to the Settings Tab of your Twitter Application and change the “Access” mode from “Read only” to “Read and Write” since we want to publish tweets from Google Docs.
7. Save the Settings, then switch to the tab that says OAuth Tool and make a note of the Consumer Key and the Consumer Secret Key.

Step B: Link Google Docs and Twitter

1. Click here to make a copy of the Google Script in your Google Drive.
2. Replace the values of TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY and TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET with the actual values available on dev.twitter.com.
3. Choose Run –> Initialize and follow the prompts to authorize the script. This is required for the script to watch your Gmail inbox at set intervals for new mails.
4. Choose Run –> RunProgram and it should display another “Authorization Required” message from Twitter. Click Authorize to allow the Google Script to publish tweets to your Twitter Gmail account.

Step C: Follow Gmail on Twitter

1. Log in to your old Twitter account and send a follow request to your new Gmail account on Twitter.
2. Log in to your new Gmail account and approve the new follower. You should now see tweets for new Gmail messages, as they arrive, in your main timeline.

Get SMS Alerts for New Gmail Messages

Should you wish to receive SMS alerts on your mobile phone for new Gmail messages, just open the Twitter profile page of your Gmail bot and turn on Mobile Notifications. This will obviously work only if you have connected (and verified) your mobile phone with your main Twitter account.