Google Mail

Google Mail or "Gmail" is a free email service hosted by Google. Google also provides "Gmail" for educational institutions which is known as Google Apps for Education (GAFE).

Recently, Gmail has provided 15GBs worth of free storage for Mail, Drive (documents) and Photos for consumer accounts, while GAFE accounts have unlimited storage.

Composing Mail

When using the web interface, there is a large red COMPOSE button on the left hand side.

New Message Window

• Letter A icon - Show message formatting tools
• Paper Clip icon - Attach a file to your document (25MB limit)
• Drive icon - Share a link/attach a Google Drive document
• Camera icon - Attach Photos
• Chain Link icon - Insert a Link
• Smile icon - Insert emoji
• Trash icon - Delete message
• Down Arrow icon - Message tools: Check Spelling, Print, etc

Sharing Drive document

While composing a message you can link to a Google Drive document in composition window.

1. Click on the Drive icon
2. Choose document
3. Choose Insert As: Drive link or Attachment
4. Click insert

Attachment size limits

Google has a relativity low attachment size limit of 25MB as they prefer users to save large files in Google Drive and then share the files to your friends/colleagues. The largest size file that you can upload to Google Drive is 5TB.

Labels

Labels help you organize your mail into categories similar to folders. In conjunction with filters, labels can be a powerful tool.

Create

For example, you may want to label your e-mail based on classes. To do this:

1. Create labels for each class you have. (Settings, Labels, Create New)
2. Open the message from your first class
3. Click the down arrow next to the reply arrow
4. Choose filter messages like this
5. In the To: field, type in your class e-mail address
6. Click Create filter with this search
7. Click the options you would like to set for this filter
8. One option would be to check Apply the label and choose your appropriate class label.
9. Check the Also apply filter to... box if you would like to include previous messages to the class e-mail address
10. Click Create Filter
11. Repeat this process with your other class e-mails

Settings Menu

1. Click on the Gear icon
2. Click Settings

Signature

1. Under the General tab
2. Scroll down to Signature
3. Modify signature

Vacation Message

1. Under the General tab
2. Scroll down to Vacation responder
3. Modify details

Forwarding Mail

1. Under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab
2. Choose Add a forwarding address

Configuring your Device

iOS

1. Settings
2. Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Add Account
4. Choose Google
5. Fill out your information (Name, Email, Password, Description)
6. Click Next
7. Choose services you would like to enable (Mail, Calendars, Contacts)