Email marketing is huge for many businesses, which is why there's a mailing list for everything. Whether you signed up for a mailing list intentionally or randomly started getting emails from a business one day, it's necessary to go through your emails every now and then to tidy up your inbox.

And lucky for you, Google just made it even easier to unsubscribe from unwanted mailing lists. First spotted by Android Police, Google is bringing a new Unsubscribe button to the Gmail app on Android. This makes unsubscribing an easy, quick option rather than something you'd have to seek out in the previous version. Here's how to use the new feature once the update reaches your phone.

How to quickly unsubscribe from mailing lists in Gmail

Seeing your inbox grow by hundreds every day is overwhelming. By unsubscribing from mailing lists, you can cut off the emails before they reach your inbox.

1. Open your Gmail app and open an email from a business you don't want to get emails from anymore.

2. To the right of the email sender, click on Unsubscribe.

3. Confirm your decision by tapping Unsubscribe on the pop-up.

4. After unsubscribing, you'll see a gray box at the top of the email that says you've unsubscribed and gives the option of reporting an email as spam as well.

And that's it! It only takes three taps in total to unsubscribe from an unwanted mailing list now in Gmail. Some emails I clicked on that came from mailing lists didn't populate the Unsubscribe button next to the sender, so this new trick might not work for every mailing list just yet.

This is a new feature that's still rolling out, so it might take a little while to flesh out all the features, and it might not be available on every Android device right now. If you don't see the Unsubscribe button next to the email sender, you can always learn how to unsubscribe from emails the "old-fashioned way." It'll just take a few more taps.

Google is currently gearing up for another round of pruning of inactive Google and Gmail accounts this week. If you have an older account you'd like to keep a hold of and haven't used in a while, now is the time to log back in and flag to Google that the account is active and in use. If you don't, you could lose access to older emails as well as the contents of your Google Drive, and Google Photos.

Google's inactive account policy changed in May of 2023 to include accounts dormant for two years or more. However, this only applies to personal Google Accounts, with schools and businesses not affected by the coming purge. The reason for Google's pruning has to do with security as the brand believes accounts inactive for two years or more are much more likely to be compromised and pose a potential risk to others.

The purging of inactive accounts is due to start as early as Friday, with Google having announced a phased approach to the removal of these accounts starting in December.

Will my Google Account be deleted?

Google has stated that before any accounts are removed, it will send multiple notifications to users in advance (both to the account in question and any recovery email address that has been set up). So, if you haven't been checking your inbox regularly, now is the time to do so.

If you have a message from Google indicating that your inactive account has been flagged for deletion then now is the time to act.

How to keep your Google Account active

If you own a Google Account you don't make use of a lot but still want to keep a hold of it, make sure you log in to the account before Friday, Dec. 1, 2023. Doing this at least once every two years is typically enough to ensure that the system flags your account as active. However, Google also suggests performing some sort of activity on the account while logged in, in order to be certain. These activities can take just a minute or two to complete and include:

• Reading or sending an email
• Using Google Drive
• Watching a YouTube video
• Downloading an app from the Google Play Store
• Signing in to a third-party app using your Google Account
• Performing a quick Google Search

Outlook

Thankfully, while this reminder might be short notice, it only takes a few minutes to make sure your older accounts are safe from the coming security harvest. While seemingly unnecessary, the occasional pruning of older accounts raises the bar when it comes to security for all users and frees up resources for Google to maintain the integrity of its services for all active users — both free and paid!

Be sure to check your inboxes for any potential heads-up about your older accounts being flagged for deletion, and quickly perform an action or two to confirm Google is aware that you wish to keep your account alive and open.

Life comes at us fast and we all have busy schedules to manage, so sharing your Outlook calendar with a loved one or people within your circle can be vital to staying on top of everything.

We recently covered how to share Google Calendar and how to add Google Calendar to Outlook, but if you are a fervent user of Outlook, we can help you out with a few simple steps.

How to share Outlook calendar

Step 1) Hop on over to your Outlook calendar, then click Calendar > Share Calendar.

Step 2) Choose the calendar you want to share.

Step 3) Click Add, and then navigate through your contacts to select who to share your calendar with, and select Add again.

Step 4) Select OK and you'll see the list of people you're sharing with as well as their permission level.

Step 5) Now you can mess around with their permission level to provide the right kind of access. Click a name, choose the access, and select OK.

It's as simple as that. Now you and your partners in crime will know exactly how to balance your schedules around one another. If you're interested, we have some other tips and tricks for Outlook, like how to change signature in Outlook and how to recall an email in Outlook.

Otherwise, happy scheduling!

Whether you use Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, or the iOS Mail app, it probably does a good job minimizing the amount of junk or spam emails that land in your inbox. When it comes to promotional emails that you chose to sign up for — and might now regret signing up for — that’s a different story. 

Some retailers make it difficult for you to unsubscribe by forcing you to navigate through multiple menus before officially unsubscribing. Even worse, they could make you try to remember your account login info. 

Luckily, if Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, or the iOS Mail app detect an unsubscribe option in an email, you can unsubscribe directly through your email app instead of through a retailer’s website. Here’s how to do it. 

How to unsubscribe from emails in Gmail

Gmail is the most popular email service, whether you're on Android or iOS. It’s easy and intuitive to use, integrates well with other Google services, and comes with a ton of helpful features, including the ability to quickly unsubscribe from emails in only a few steps. 

If you’re sorting through emails on the desktop, you’ll see an unsubscribe link to the right of the sender’s email address when you open an email. A pop-up message asks if you’re sure, and then you can press the blue Unsubscribe button. The process is similar in the mobile app, with only three steps after opening the Gmail app. 

1. Select an email from a retailer you’d like to unsubscribe from. 

2. Tap the three vertical dots in the top right corner. If Google detects the option to unsubscribe in that email, you can select the Unsubscribe option from the menu. 

3. Confirm that you’d like to unsubscribe from that email sender by tapping Unsubscribe in the pop-up box.  

How to unsubscribe from emails in iOS mail

Whether you're looking at Apple's email app on desktop or mobile, the steps to unsubscribe from retailers are just as simple. 

1. From the iOS Mail app, select an email from a retailer you'd like to unsubscribe from. 

2. If there's an unsubscribe link in the email, you'll see a message under the email's subject line that reads "This message is from a mailing list." Select the clickable Unsubscribe button next to this message. 

3. When the confirmation pop-up appears, select Unsubscribe again to confirm your decision. 

How to unsubscribe from emails in Microsoft Outlook

Unsubscribing from emails in Microsoft Outlook is almost identical to the process in Gmail. If your email is pulled up on the desktop, you’ll see a message at the top of certain emails below the subject line that reads “Getting too much email?” with a clickable Unsubscribe link beside it. With the mobile Microsoft Outlook app open, unsubscribing from retailers takes three steps.

1. Open an email from a company you’d like to unsubscribe from.  

2. If there’s an unsubscribe link in the email, you can tap the clickable Unsubscribe link below the email’s subject line.

3. When the pop-up message asks if you’re sure you want to unsubscribe, select Unsubscribe. 

It's easy to quickly blurt out your email when you're at the checkout counter and an employee prompts you to sign up for their rewards program. But when you give out your email to 20+ different retailers, those promotional emails start to pile up faster than you can delete them in your inbox. Unsubscribing via your preferred email app makes this filtering process simpler. For an even better email experience, check out how to stop invisible email tracking pixels. 

The internet has been thrust into a minor state of confusion as a new Gmail feature is being advertised to users both on the Gmail app and webpage. Advertised as Enhanced Safe Browsing, Google is claiming that it will "additional protection against dangerous emails." First of all, yes, this is a real Google feature. You're not being tricked.

It has existed since 2020, but specifically for safe browsing. It became available with Gmail a little after, and it's easy to activate. Google is taking the initiative and reminding people that this feature exists, so you might feel pressured to use it for the sake of protection, but it's important to know everything you can before biting the bullet.

Should you use Gmail's Enhanced Safe Browsing?

In order to turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing, you can simply click here to get to the page. For something that is meant to provide further protection against malicious parties while browsing the web and opening emails, it would seem like a must-use. 

But a key question might be swimming to the surface of your mind right now: If it were truly necessary, why would Google make it an opt-in feature? While on the page to turn the feature on, you can select "learn more" to read more into exactly what it's doing.

It allows Google to check for URLs, downloads, browser extensions, system information and samples of pages you visit. Alongside this, it can "associate information gained from Enhanced Safe Browsing with your Google account." If you're worried about sharing too much information with Google, using it is probably not a great idea.

There are already plenty of scares in the internet world about how much data we share with giant corporations, so it's easy to see something like this and worry. In this sense, Google advertising the feature to users can be worrying, but it's important to know what you're signing up for before doing so. Thankfully, even if you do opt-in to this feature, it can be deactivated at any time. You're not permanently set into this.

Google is currently rolling out a new feature to Gmail and it might just end all of the kerfuffle involved in scheduling events over email. The two new features allow Gmail users to quickly identify the perfect time to schedule meetings or events with one another (currently limited to 1:1 appointments only)

As the feature rolls out over the next few weeks, users will notice a new Calendar icon in their compose windows — here’s where you’ll find Gmail’s two new perks: “Offer times you’re free” and “Create an event.” 

New Gmail features: Create an event & Offer times you’re free 

Clicking the “Create an event button” is self explanatory — it will generate a Google Calendar event between yourself and all of the current email chain’s recipients. 

This will expand the calendar flow on the right-hand side of the screen and allow you to assign additional invitees, an event title, and a brief summary of what to expect before sending it off as an invite to others.

On the other hand, choosing the new “Offer times you’re free” option will similarly open up the calendar flow on the right, only this time allowing you to highlight free spots on your Google Calendar where you’ll be available for an event or meeting. You’ll even be able to highlight separate blocks of time across multiple days.

Once you’ve selected the times you’re free, you can fire off your email and let the recipient choose a time that works best for them, with you both receiving an event notification and calendar update afterward.

Outlook

This Gmail update won’t set the world on fire, but it does enable a super convenient way to arrange events and meetings without all of the haggling for time you might currently face.

It might be a small step in refining Google’s email service but it’ll be a noticeable one for many, and it’s nice to know Google still have minor tweaks like this in mind instead of throwing all of its eggs into the generative AI basket. 

Adding a signature to your emails can add a sense of professionalism to your outbound communiqué or just save you the hassle of having to write "Best wishes" or "Thanks for your time" at the end of every email.

Whatever your reasons, we've noticed that a fair amount of Gmail users are looking to add signatures to their emails but don't know how. Well, luckily, we do! And we're happy to show you how with our guide on how to add a signature in Gmail. 

Step 1: Open Settings in Gmail

First things first, open up Gmail and look towards the top right of the window. You'll want to click on the "Settings" button, represented by the icon of a cog.

In the panel that drops down, you'll then want to click on "See all settings."

Step 2: Add and configure your new signature

Now that you're in the settings menu, scroll down until you get to the section labelled "Signature" and click the "+ Create new" button.

You'll be asked to choose a name for your signature so you can easily identify it. I.e. If you want to use a particular signature for responding to business or work issues, then "Work" would be best suited.

After you've chosen a name, you'll then see the signature editor in full. Here, you can use a variety of rich-text formatting, hyperlinks, and images to customize your email footer as you see fit.

Also, make sure to pay attention to the options below the editor. Here, you'll be able to set when and where your new signature will appear.

Step 3: Save the changes

Once you're done writing and arranging your signature, you'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the settings window and click the "Save changes" button.

And there you have it! Your emails should now feature your new signature. Try sending yourself and email to see how it looks, and if anything needs altering or changing.

If so, simply follow the same steps to return to the settings screen and edit your signature from there. Just remember to click the "Save changes" button after each edit to make sure you don't lose any work.

Beware! If you've got any Gmail accounts that you've been neglecting, Google will eliminate them, especially if it's been inactive for a specific period of time. Not only will you lose your inbox, but other contents from Google services will be scrapped, too.

Google says that it has updated its policy regarding inactive accounts to protect its users from account hijacking, spam, phishing scams, and other security threats.

Google's new inactive accounts policy

How long can you leave your Gmail account inactive before Google terminates it? According to a new blog post from Google, it will get purged after two years. And yes, you will lose everything, your emails, YouTube contents, Google Photos — even Google Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar.

As mentioned, Google is eliminating inactive accounts for security reasons. The search-engine giant claims that an internal analysis concluded that abandoned accounts are 10 times less likely to have two-step verification set up. In other words, these accounts are more susceptible to cybercriminal activity (e.g., identity theft).

Google said that it will kick off its purging of inactive accounts in December 2023. "We will take a phased approach, starting with accounts that were created and never used again," Google said in a blog post,

The search engine giant says that it will send targeted users multiple notifications regarding an impending account closure months before closure. These warning will be sent to both the account email address, and if provided, the recovery email, too.

How to keep your Gmail account active

Wondering how to keep your Gmail accounts out of Google's crosshairs? If you do at least one of these activities below once every two years, you'll steer clear of the upcoming purge

• Using Google Search
• Using Sign In with Google to sign into a third-party service or app
• Downloading an app on the Google Play Store
• Watching a YouTube video
• Using Google Drive
• Reading an email
• Sending an email

Google says that Google accounts with an existing subscription are safe, so those accounts won't be impacted (even if there is no activity outside of that subscription).

You’ll be soon hard-pressed to not find an AI button in a Google app. 

At its 2023 annual developer conference, Google I/O, the search giant spent nearly an hour and a half outlining how it’s reimagining each of its products with AI — close to seven years after declaring that its future is AI. With its updated suite of apps, Google’s ready to unleash AI on the masses. Whether that’s writing Instagram captions, responding to friends’ texts, putting together slide decks, or even finding new wallpapers for your phone, Google expects you to outsource a lot of what you do on your phone and the internet to AI. 

“The shift with AI is as big as they come and that's why it's so important that we make AI helpful for everyone,” said Sundar Pichai. 

Google’s AI wave has been a long time in the making. For years, Google has accumulated billions of users on its free services and harvested their information to train the technologies its latest AI offerings depend on. That has allowed Google to build a supply chain for AI: from the endless corpus of data AI models are based on to the tools developers and businesses would need to build AI services and AI apps that will soon be a part of our lives. 

Google AI getting productive 

On Google’s set of productivity apps like Docs, Gmail, and Slides, you will soon have the option to ask an AI bot to write your emails and documents for you. All you have to do is tell it what it’s supposed to write about. In a couple of iterations, even that won’t be necessary as the AI learns more about you and the context you’re working in and begins to sift through the treasure trove of your information on Google’s servers to anticipate your prompts before you type them. 

In one demo, for instance, Google showed how Gmail’s new “Help Me Write” tool scans an email from an airline letting you know the amount of refund you’re eligible for, and pens an elaborate response for requesting a full refund instead. Need original pictures for a presentation? Punch in a few words describing the scene in the sidebar on Google Slides, and it will generate them out of thin air. 

What this new AI sidebar — called Sidekick — will, more importantly, do is cut down the need for you to engage in laborious tasks like looking for files and information in your Google account. It can read your spreadsheets on your behalf and summarize them in an email for you to forward, for instance, or produce speaker notes for that slide deck you prepared. 

Google’s AI push will be most apparent in its search engine. A new colorful section, Search Generative Experience, will soon dominate the top of the results, pushing the traditional list of blue links way down. Google calls this an “AI snapshot” and what it does is stitch together a direct answer to your query instead of forcing you to go website-hopping. 

The AI Snapshot’s significance will come to light especially when your questions are complex and riddled with personal variables that no website has ever covered like “What's better for a family with kids under 3 and a dog, Bryce Canyon or Arches?” Normally, you’d have to visit a couple of URLs to fetch the information you’d need to accurately answer this but in an AI age, the snapshot section will scour through those numerous web pages for you, and let you know that Bryce Canyon is the way to go. 

At the heart of these new developments is Bard, Google’s AI chatbot, which will be available throughout its services so that you can simply chat with it to find information, write emails, or plan trip itineraries. Though chatbots have been around for ages, they’re finally capable enough to be your primary interface into the web and narrow down the internet’s vastness into a far more approachable chat box. While the promise is incredible, we’ve certainly have our concerns with some of Bard’s answers to questions we’ve posed, so it will be interesting to see its next stage of evolution.  

Google AI and Android 

These recent AI advances will trickle down to many of your everyday smartphone experiences too. An upcoming, new editor inside Google Photos, for example, will let you edit photos to the point you’re almost distorting the reality. You could move where you’re standing, replace a cloudy sky with a sunny one, and remove any unwanted objects or people, all with a couple of touches, and zero Photoshop knowledge. Starting with Android 14, the wallpaper picker will allow you to generate new backdrops, or turn your own photos into cinematic, live backgrounds.  

Don’t be evil 

With AI also comes a lot of societal risks, and though no one heard these actual words at the keynote, Google spent a lot of it convincing us that it still stands by its foundational motto: “Don’t be evil.” 

AI models like Google’s now actively integrate drawing their capabilities from existing works of artists, writers, and the rest of the internet. And so far, few companies have bothered to extend credit. 

At I/O, Google emphasized how it’s tackling these concerns as it readies AI for mainstream use: photos its AI bot surfaces will have watermarks to tell you whether they’re AI-generated, search results will have line-to-line citations when you want to verify the information, and its AI tools will have guardrails to prevent misuse and harm. 

But while Google’s focus on responsible AI is encouraging, it’s also on the other side of the arms race, looking to profit off these developments. Its reassurances feel like a false sense of security and appear as footnotes inside services that most people won’t bother to check. 

More importantly, Google failed to address the greater issues of such a rampant AI takeover. It didn’t reveal whether these new AI features will use people’s personal data to improve, how the new AI summaries in search will affect publishers, and how the auto-generated text and images can become mass misinformation weapons. Even in the 91-page research paper Google published about its model, PaLM, it didn’t say what kind of data it has used to train and build its new AI tools.

Bottom line

The arrival of AI will change how people see and use some of the internet’s most popular services, and as it gets better, it will only encroach on more space inside Google’s apps. But at the same time, this technology is the culmination of decades of efforts humans have put into the web, and in its current form, this AI will not only disrupt the internet, but also potentially kill the mechanics that have gotten it so far. And without a thriving and sustainable web, AI may never evolve past its gimmick, wallpaper-building phase.

Hopefully, though, as more people learn of the perils of AI, like its tendency to spit convincing falsehoods, companies like Google will be held accountable, and forced to step up with effective solutions even if that means slowing down their own bottom line.

Gmail's latest feature is one we've all been waiting for: official email address domains will possess a blue checkmark (much like Twitter) to confirm their authenticity. While this isn't going to stop every scam from doing damage to helpless users, it could be a great blow against suspicious emails.

Google's initiative for a safer emailing space started in 2021 with the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI), which asked businesses to upload a profile picture depicting their brand logo. Now, those brands that underwent that extensive authentication process will begin to see a blue checkmark next to their name.

Gmail users won't have to take action to activate this feature, but admins of businesses can go to Google's Help Center to figure out how to begin the BIMI process. This process involves adopting DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication) and being issued a Certification Authority, with the two examples listed being Entrust or DigiCert.

Will Gmail's blue checkmarks be all that safe?

While the inclusion of this feature is undeniably positive, Google doesn't have the best reputation with cybersecurity. It's only been a couple of months since a fake version of Chat GPT made its way on the Google extension store and stole data from up to 9,000 downloaders. Just because Google is now verifying certain emails, are we certain that those with verification can't still be scammers?

Regardless of whether or not an email domain has a blue checkmark, we recommend exercising caution anyway. If Google can approve an extension on its official store that ends up stealing consumer's data, the company could potentially also verify an email address with suspicious intentions.

"How to access archived emails in Gmail" is blowing up in Google Search! And quite frankly, we understand why. When you're on your phone, it's easy to swipe the wrong way, and suddenly, you've archived an email you weren't supposed to — let's talk about how to access archived emails in Gmail.

It's rather simple, so we won't keep you too long, but if you're looking for other Gmail tutorials, like how to delete Gmail emails or how to create unlimited email addresses in one Gmail account.

If you need to clear out space in your email, archiving is your best bet, but if you need those emails again, here's how to access archived emails in Gmail.

How to access archived emails in Gmail

It really is that simple. If you have anymore Gmail queries, run around Laptop Mag for a while and you're bound to find what you're looking for eventually.

With companies keen to sell (or share) your personal data with third parties, here’s how to create unlimited email addresses within one Gmail account to spot when they do this.

And no, I do not mean setting up many separate Gmail accounts. That is a super time-consuming process, and not very user friendly — scrolling through a massive list of Gmail accounts to switch between.

Instead, thanks to a super quick and easy trick, you can create an unlimited amount of unique email addresses that go back to a single Gmail account. With this, you can track and trace the companies who quietly sell off your contact details.

P.S. This trick works with @gmail.com personal accounts, as well as G Suite business email addresses.

How to create infinite email addresses in one Gmail account

Guess what, macOS users? Microsoft just announced that Outlook, the company's popular email and task management app, is now free to use. Previously, you had to purchase a Microsoft 365 subscription or an Office license to access all of Outlook's useful features. 

On top of that, Microsoft added new features for Outlook for Mac. Curious about how Microsoft redesigned, tweaked and enhanced the app? Stick around to find out.

New features on Outlook for Mac

One of the best use cases for Microsoft Outlook is that you can manage all of your inboxes in one hub, including Google, iCloud, Yahoo! and more. As a cherry on top, Microsoft boasts "enterprise-grade security" with Outlook, ensuring your messages, contacts, calendars and files are protected.

However, Microsoft claims that it has made Outlook even better with the following new features:

• Handoff  — pick up tasks where you left off between iOS and Mac devices. For example, you can pick up your iPhone 14 Pro Max after leaving your 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro, continuing your Outlook workflow seamlessly.

• Outlook Profiles — connect your email accounts to Apple's Focus experience. This ensures you don't get unwanted, distracting notifications while you're trying to say in the zone (coming soon).

• New peek feature — get a sneak peek of upcoming calendar events via the menu bar (coming soon).

Note: To use the Handoff feature, you'll need to make sure that your iOS and MacOS devices are logged into the same Apple ID.

How to get the free Outlook for Mac

To take advantage of the updated, redesigned, free Outlook for Mac, you can download it in the Mac App Store. Your Mac must have macOS 11 Big Sur or newer to experience the complimentary app.

This updated version of Outlook is optimized for Apple Silicon, so expect zippier performance and faster sync speeds 

Figuring out how to set up out of office replies in Outlook is easy when you're a Microsoft 365 subscriber, but if you don't have a Microsoft 365 plan, you're out of luck.

If you haven't taken advantage of Microsoft's 30-day free trial yet, click here to employ it to see if you can use the out-of-office reply feature. If not, better luck next time! For those who do have Automatic Replies support, check out the step-by-step tutorial below on how to set up "out of office" in Outlook.

How to set up 'out of office' in Outlook

The following steps are for Microsoft 365 subscribers only.

1. Open the Microsoft Outlook app.

2. Click on File.

3. Click on Automatic Replies (Out of Office).

4. Click on Send automatic replies and type in your out-of-office message.

5. Click on Only send during this time range to select the dates and times you'd like your out-of-office reply to send.

6. Next, hit OK and your out of office reply is now good to go!

Be sure to check out our other Microsoft Outlook guides, including how to add a signature on Outlook and how to change a signature on Outlook.

"How to change signature in Outlook" is blowing up on Google Search at the moment. Users of the popular Microsoft email client have no idea how to modify the end-of-email texts from their messages.

If you're a part of that camp, don't worry! We have an easy, step-by-step tutorial that details exactly how you can change your signature in Outlook seamlessly and efficiently. By the way, if you want to know how to add a signature in Outlook, click here.

How to change signature in Outlook

First things first, in order to change your signature in Outlook, you must have a Microsoft 365 plan. If you're not interested in purchasing a subscription, but you still need to modify your signature, consider checking out Microsoft's Microsoft's 30-day free trial. This way, you can make the changes you need without paying a cent.

Once you're all signed up for a Microsoft 365 subscription, follow the steps below to change your signature in Outlook.

1. Fire up the Microsoft Outlook app.

2. Go to File in the top-right corner.

3. Click on Options. 

4. Go to Mail followed by Signatures.

5. Click on the signature you'd like to edit.

6. Next, play around with the formatting options to change your signature to your liking.

7. Don't forget that you can use the icons below to add pictures and links.

To see how your newly changed signature will appear to recipients, click on New Email.

Tip: Want more of a more sophisticated look to your signature? Try downloading pre-made Microsoft signature templates here.

"How to add signature in Outlook" is currently trending on Google Search as users of the popular Microsoft email app scratch their heads on how to add end-of-email blocks of text.

Signatures add a sweet dose of professionalism to your emails, and it gives recipients information about who you are, what you do, and how to contact you. That being said, if you have no idea how to add a signature to Outlook, you've come to the right place. Check out our step-by-step tutorial below.

How to add signature in Outlook

First, in order to add a signature in Outlook, you must have a Microsoft 365 subscription. If you can't afford to purchase a subscription, check out Microsoft's 30-day free trial so that you can make the appropriate changes without paying a fee.

Once you're all signed up for a Microsoft 365 plan, follow the instructions below to add a signature in Outlook.

1. Open the Microsoft Outlook app.

2. Go to File in the top-right corner.

3. Click on Options. 

4. Go to Mail followed by Signatures.

5. Tap New to give your signature a title. Click OK.

6. In the Edit Signature field, type add in your signature.

7. You can add logos and links by clicking on the icons labeled below.

To double-check how your newly added signature looks to recipients, click on New Email.

Pro tip: If you want a more sophisticated look to your signature, consider downloading pre-made Microsoft signature templates here.

Since Gmail launched 18 years ago, many of us have collected a seemingly endless amount of emails from family, friends, and business associates. Many of those thousands of emails brought along baby photos, wedding photos, resumes, articles, scripts, PDFs, JPGs, and funny gifs. Let's not even mention all the spam we get. How many times have you been told your unknown Nigerian Prince uncle died and left you a trillion dollars?

Google offers 15GB to store all of these precious emails, but 15GB won't last forever and unless you're willing to shell out extra money, the best thing to do is to take the time to delete emails and files you really have no use for and to also make sure that all that laborious spam is gone, too. Doing so will help you keep track of actual important emails and free up all the space you need for the data worth keeping. 

How much Google One storage are you using?

First, ensure you're logged into your Google account on your computer while using your favorite browser. Although you may be able to delete emails using your iPhone or Android phone app, Google's best tools are available from a desktop browser. 

Before you proceed, you should check how much storage you have remaining in Google One. If you have Gmail, you have a Google One account, whether you know it or not. So step one is to open your Google One account (Opens in a new tab) and click on the box marked "Storage." This will show you how much space you are using in total across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.

You can also do this by signing into your Google account, clicking on your account icon in the top right corner, selecting "Manage your Google Account," and scrolling down to find "Account storage." You can also go to your Google Drive (Opens in a new tab) to see a breakdown. 

Alright, now that we know how much digital hoarding is going on we can go about addressing it.

How to delete all emails in Gmail

If you've had your Gmail account for years then you may be shocked to find out how much storage space it is using, fortunately, it is one of the easiest to clean up. Now we aren't advocating for declaring full email bankruptcy and deleting literally all of your emails (although that doesn't sound liberating), but you can delete entire categories of email that you don't want or need. As you can see by the photo above, I'm already paying Google for extra space because I have never made time to clean my email before today. So unless you want an inbox filled with "Dad, send more money!", I suggest you follow along.

1. A good place to start is by scrolling down the page and clicking on "Get Your Space Back."

2. Once there, select "Free up account storage."

3. Here, you can see exactly how much storage your deleted emails and spam are taking up, then review and delete them.

4. Just click on each option and you're taken to a web page that will show you all the emails in the files you've chosen.

5. Scan through them to make sure none are important. On the upper left side, choose all items, and then on the upper right side, select "Delete all" and you're done with that. 

As a side note, you could regularly make sure to empty all your deleted emails via the "Trash" icon on the left of your Gmail user screen. Just select "Trash", then select "Empty Trash Now" and within seconds they're all gone. It's fast and easy.

Google makes deleting your emails rather easy and breaks things down into tabs to make the decision-making process even quicker. I save my "Primary Tab" for last because that's where most of my important and personal emails end up. So the obvious choices to start with first are Social and Promotional. 

In your Gmail account, select the "Promotions Tab" and do a quick check to make sure you don't really want these emails. Then, just above the "Primary Tab", select the square "bulk" selection box and watch as all the emails are magically selected. Then simply hit delete at the top, and once again, you've just cleared up some space. 

You can also do this for the "Social Tab," which will free up a lot of space. 

Once you have completed deleting these emails you should select the "Trash" icon on the left once more and bulk delete everything. Then you can check your storage once again and see how much room you've created. 

Quick filtering tips to help you keep things spotless

In your Gmail's search box, you can use certain keywords as search filters to help you locate old emails, and other odds and ends you may not realize are still laying around eating up space.

If you type "before:05/11/2009", you will see all emails sent before that date. You can swap the day and for these simply by changing them to the time period you wish to locate. 

If you type "older_than:2m" within the search box, all the emails that are older than two months will be displayed. You can also use the term "newer_than" for emails newer than two months. You can also switch the number if you want to search further back. 

This next shortcut is a favorite of mine. Type "has:attachment" into your Gmail search bar, and all emails that have attachments will be displayed. This comes in handy when looking for old documents or photos you may wish to find. 

Another favorite of mine is "filename:pdf." This helps you quickly locate all those PDFs you've been sent. Lastly, another helpful one is "from:Bob" which will locate all emails sent to you by Bob (or any other name you put in).

Between deleting and using these magical search terms, you now have all you need to keep your Gmail squeaky clean and tidy.

"How to delete Gmail emails" is a popular phrase that's blowing up on Google Search at the moment. Many Gmail users likely feel like they're drowning in a sea of junk mail, but have no idea how to rid themselves of their overfilled inbox.

If you feel the same way, worry not. We've not an easy, step-by-step guide on how to delete all the Gmail emails you don't need.

How to delete Gmail emails

The steps to deleting your Gmail emails en masse are so easy, you may kick yourself for not discovering how to do it sooner.

1. Fire up Gmail and click on the tab you'd like to empty, whether it's Primary, Promotions, or Social.

2. Find the tiny square icon under the search field and click on it. This will select the last 50 emails in the tab.

3. If you're OK with only deleting the last 50 emails, click on the trash can icon to delete them.

4. If you want the entire tab to be emptied out, look for a message that says, "Select all messages in [insert tab name]." Click on it.

5. Once you've done that, confirm that it says, "All messages in [insert tab name] are selected" at the top. Click on the trash can icon and, voila, you've deleted all of your emails. You can do the same for the other tabs.

6. If you prefer to delete the emails individually, click on the empty box next to the email and click on the trash icon.

"How to recall email in Outlook" is a query gaining traction on Google Search. Why?  People want to know whether they can retrieve a mistakenly sent email from a recipient's inbox.

Most of us have experienced that heart-stopping moment when we accidentally send an email too early, or we put the wrong email address in the "Send to" field. Thankfully, there is, indeed, an Outlook feature that lets users recall emails in the event of a mishap, but only under certain circumstances.

How to recall an email in Outlook

You can only recall an email in Outlook under one condition: if your recipient hasn't opened it yet. If the recipient has already clicked on the email to read it, I'm sorry to say, it's too late for you. However, if the recipient hasn't gotten to it yet, you're in luck. You can recall the email in Outlook via the following steps.

1. Go to the Sent folder, which is located on the left panel.

2. Double-click on the message you'd like to recall.

3. Click on Message followed by Actions.

4. Click on Recall this Message.

5. Here you'll have two options. You can replace the sent email with a new one, or you can delete it entirely from the recipient's inbox. For this tutorial, we'll be choosing the latter. Click on "Delete unread copies of this message."

6. Tick the box that says, “Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient.”

7. Press "OK."

In a few seconds, Outlook will send you a message on whether the recall was a success or a failure. As mentioned, if the recipient already opened your email, you won't be able to retract it.

How to see your Sent folder in Outlook

For some Outlook users, sent emails are not saved in the Sent folder by default. If your email is not in the Sent folder, you won't be able to recall it. In order to fix this, you'll need to navigate to File > Options > Mail. 

Next, under Save Messages, make sure "Sent Mail" is selected in the drop-down box. Now, copies of all your sent emails will be funneled into the Sent folder.

If you cannot see your Sent folder, you may need to click on one of the downward arrows on the left panel to access it.

The quicker you can recall the email, the higher your chances will be to successfully retract it from the recipient's inbox. Good luck!

Gmail boasts more than 1.8 billion global users, many of whom are not the most tech savvy of individuals. The lack of technical prowess has led to a booming industry for spammers. While it’s not possible to completely eradicate spam, blocking domains where you’re continually sent these types of messages goes a long way to keeping spam out of your inbox.

According to research, billions of dollars are stolen annually by criminals using fake emails that fool unsuspecting people. In addition to your hard-earned money, scammers can also steal your identity. What’s worse, it can even lead to downloading malware, spyware, and ransomware. One of the easiest ways to protect yourself from these scammers is by identifying their email domains and immediately blocking them.

Besides scam emails, there is an equally irritating type of email that many people will happily block if they know how to, and those are marketing emails. If you have accidentally subscribed to a website’s marketing emails, you know just how hard it is to unsubscribe from them. The easier approach would be to block their domain completely.

How to block a domain in Gmail

1. To block emails from a certain domain with your Gmail, click the Show search options icon on Gmail’s search bar.

2. Next, type your unwanted domain in the From field of the search options menu. Your search value should be in the format of @xxxxx.com. For example, @scamemails.com.

3. After typing your unwanted domain, click the Create filter button at the bottom of the search options menu. This step will open another menu that lists actions that Gmail can automatically apply to emails matching your filter value.

4. Select Delete it from the menu above, and click Create filter.

Gmail has been dominating the market since Google launched it in 2004. Yahoo Mail and Microsoft's Outlook had a major grip on market share before Gmail’s arrival, but both combined can't match Gmail's at least 1.5 billion active users. Yahoo Mail presently sits at around 230 million, while Outlook boasts roughly 400 million.

Gmail’s success is often attributed to the simple, easy-to-use interface it provides its users. It also has hundreds of features that make email easier than ever before. Some of our favorite features include automatic replies, filtering, and categorization of emails, Gmail Chat, and more. 

That said, Gmail offers more features than most people are aware of. Taking advantage of these hidden features will improve your Gmail experience and increase your productivity. These features include setting your default view, showing previews of emails, email scheduling, and more. Continue reading below to learn more about them.

Hidden Gmail features you need to learn 

Gmail is incredibly useful whether you use it for your personal or work needs. Learning as many of its features will make your life way easier. Here are the top hidden features that users need to know. 

Change How Emails Are Shown

Most Yahoo Mail users who transition to Gmail often have one common complaint. Gmail shows fewer emails per scroll than Yahoo Mail does. The obvious reason is that Gmail’s default view uses more padding than Yahoo Mail. It also displays the attachment of each email on a second line.

Unbeknownst to many users, you can easily change this view with Gmail’s Settings. Under the Density menu, Gmail offers three options: Default, Comfortable, and Compact. Default is the normal view you have the first time you use Gmail. With Comfortable, Gmail hides the attachments of each email, thus reducing the space used per line. Lastly, Gmail takes this further with Compact by removing the extra padding from each email line, making your email list as compact as possible. 

Activate the Reading Pane

Do you wish you could read your emails without having to click each one of them and navigate back to your inbox every time? Well, with Gmail’s Reading Pane feature, you can do just that. 

By turning on Reading Pane, your inbox is split into two. One side will show your inbox list while the other will show the content of the email you clicked. You can also choose where the Reading Pane will appear. It can either be right of inbox or below inbox. 

Schedule emails any time

By default, all emails are sent the moment you click Send. However, Gmail also allows you to schedule your emails to be sent later. With email scheduling, you can set a date or time that Gmail will send your email in the future. However, a limit of this feature is that you can only schedule emails one at a time.

A great example where this feature is extremely helpful is when working outside your shift. You can avoid your boss knowing that you sometimes work beyond working hours. If you want to avoid disturbing your clients outside business hours, scheduling your emails for the next business day is also great. 

Snooze less important emails

Are you receiving emails that are not important enough to deal with immediately but important enough that you cannot outright delete them? Then, consider snoozing these emails instead. With Gmail, you can snooze an email to hide it from your inbox temporarily. 

Gmail lets you select when snoozed emails will reappear. You can choose from preset future dates and times or set your own specific date and time. Once your selected period arrives, the email will be available for you to read again. 

Undo your angry emails to your boss

Email always felt permanent. Once you sent it, it used to be impossible to undo. Back then, once you sent your angry email to your boss, you were sure that he would be reading it the next time he opened his inbox. Thankfully, this is no longer the case with Gmail’s Undo Send feature.

Gmail lets you undo a sent email for a short period. Once you send an email, an undo button will appear on the bottom-left section of the page for a short time. Even better, Gmail allows you to select how long you can undo emails. Your options are 5, 10, 20, and 30 seconds. To access this setting, go to Settings > General > Undo Send. 

Organize your inbox with subfolders and labels

One of the key features of Gmail is its well-organized interface. You can take this further by using labels and creating subfolders for your emails. 

You can also create filters that will help Gmail automatically move emails to a subfolder or set labels for them. This way, you will never lose an important email. 

Google is an omnipotent entity that dominates almost every facet of my digital life. This includes the emails I check, the documents I write, the phone I use, the photos I take, the images I search for, the websites I browse, the videos I watch, and the accounts I create with third-party applications. It can all be traced back to a single company, and so much of what’s on the internet is somehow entwined in Google’s massive web. 

Even my job, which relies on appealing to the most popular search engine in the world, can be boiled down to Google determining my livelihood. It’s an absurd amount of power for a single corporation to possess, and it’s quite scary when I think about it for too long. However, this doesn’t particularly matter, right? After all, Google is a great service. It’s not like one of the most prevalent services could be a total nightmare in reality.

Well, over the course of the last month, my trust in Google has eroded. It’s not uncommon to find issues with the company’s services every once in a while, but these inconveniences have been stacking up and I’m baffled by how awful Google has been for me lately.

This piece will highlight the issues I’ve faced when attempting to swap Google emails. My dissatisfaction with my old email address, which was created for me many years ago, has made me want to change domains for many years. However, I never took initiative to do so because I always knew it’d be a huge undertaking. I don’t completely fault Google for this system being so difficult, but there are a few ways it could be designed better.

Why I wanted to change my email 

Some users created their email as an edgy kid sneaking an inappropriate joke into their address. As adulthood kicks in, they seek a more professional moniker to represent their online presence for communicating with colleagues and other esteemed connections.  Saddled with some goofy username they don’t like anymore, many users are ready for a change..

In my case, the email I’ve been using for the last decade was opened by my father. Thing is, he didn’t spell my name correctly in the address itself. And for many years, I’ve been emailing professors and other students in scholarly settings with an incorrectly named email, while also taking that to my professional career and having to deal with the confusion when I explain how my email address name is spelled differently than my actual name.

But that’s not why I decided to open a new email address. I didn’t care that people were misspelling that name, as I do not have any attachment to it. The issue boiled to the surface when I came out as a trans woman this year, as that email address features my misspelled deadname. Now, even when I sign off on emails responding to people as “Momo,” they still use that deadname, and it frustrated me for many months. 

It is amusing when I’m emailing someone and they not only use that deadname, but also misspell it. Beyond it being funny, the whole situation is exhausting. Google has never made it much easier, as you cannot change your email address after it's been set in stone. This makes sense within the context of the system, as it’s not as simple as a username. But it is kind of bizarre how unforgiving it is for those who want to rebrand themselves, especially trans individuals looking to abandon their deadname.

Email forwarding and label problems 

While we all use our Google account for a number of things, it’s primarily an email service. And trying to get all of your emails moved from a single spot is pretty difficult. Beyond having to swap everything over, the most challenging part is informing those who email you about the switch.

I don’t have many negative things to say about this process, as swapping everything over was quite intuitive — outside of the forwarding option being hidden behind a very specific menu. But that simply required a quick Google search. After that, I was on my way. But even when that’s done, and you’ve managed to forward everything between accounts, Google’s automatic label system is pretty frustrating to deal with.

All of my old emails were successfully being sent to my new account, but after I got fifty-or-so, it automatically labeled them with my old email address attached. This wouldn’t be a big deal normally, but that email address features the deadname I’ve been looking to abandon. Seeing it every time I open my Gmail is not a good feeling.

I initially thought it was as simple as renaming the label so I wouldn’t have to see that deadname anymore, but this did not work. All that change did was rename the label on those old emails rather than automatically labeling new emails from that source. I felt pretty hopeless, as having to manually rename old emails to get rid of my old address was not remotely feasible.

But after a decent bit of tinkering, I managed to program a system that would automatically label every email from that old source as “Momo.” I also made sure to hide the label that showed my old email address, which means I ideally never have to see it again. 

Unfortunately, that didn’t prevent it from showing up somewhere specific. Whenever I open the Gmail app on my phone and click the three bars on the top left to show my labels, it will put my old email address at the top of “recent labels,” even though I’ve selected the option to hide it. I have not figured out how to prevent this.

Google Drive troubles 

Switching everything over in Google Drive was the most cumbersome part of this process, as Google enforces a quota limiting the number of items you can transfer ownership of within a day. Not only that, but there’s no “transfer ownership” button available immediately. I first needed to share the file, and even when selecting “transfer ownership,” I had to accept the permission on my new account. This makes sense in the case of a random account attempting to force ownership on you without you knowing, but the issue is that the sharing quota limits how many files you can accept ownership of within that time frame.

There should be an easy export and import option for this. Some will need to permanently swap accounts at some point in their life for one reason or another. Is it not just possible to have a feature that allows me to fully transfer ownership of all files from my old account to my new one? Manually transferring each file, and being blocked from doing too many at once if I incorrectly calculate the unclear sharing quota, is ridiculous. 

I understand that having a “transfer all” button could be a privacy breach and an easy way to steal everything from someone’s account, but surely there could be an additional security measure implemented when people want to use that feature. To be perfectly honest, if someone managed to breach your Google account, they could do a lot more damage by accessing your saved financial information. I’d much prefer going through an additional security measure than having to continuously transfer files over the course of a week. I’ve been using this Google account for a decade and still have so many files to transfer ownership of.

Trapped by my Google Pixel 

I’ve been using a Google phone for a few years now, and even before that, my Gmail has been linked to every Android phone I’ve owned. This means all of the data I've saved is directly linked to the old account. I still haven’t removed the old address from my Google Pixel as a result, and I probably never will, since the consequences seem a little drastic. Removing my old Gmail means all of the stuff I have saved locally on the phone will go with it. I’m not entirely sure what this entails, but I know at the very least, my local notes will disappear and who knows what else.

It also means that my in-app purchases and everything I’ve downloaded from the Google Play store will no longer be accessible. I haven’t purchased many apps or games through Google Play, but I would hate to lose the few that I have. Frankly, I’d probably only be out $30-40 dollars, but it’s still not worth it in my mind. I also would lose all of my app download history, and it would be a huge undertaking to get all of it back. I do feel a little trapped by my old email on my Google Pixel, but there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it right now.

The other issues of swapping this account 

Going through this switch also meant I lost access to other things saved to that account, including all of my videos, folders, likes, and subscriptions on YouTube. I was hoping I could import it into my new account, but that didn’t seem possible without using an external plug-in. I had to go through my subscriptions and resubscribe one by one, which wasn’t too bad, but it did take a little while.

Bookmarks were easily exportable and that took little to no effort whatsoever, although it wasn’t as easy with my plug-ins. I had to manually redownload them one by one, which was annoying as some are pretty unpopular so I had to copy the link into my address to find each one of them.

Going through all of the accounts I used my old email address for and swapping it to my new email address took a good while, but it was actually the simplest part of this process. None of the services I used even bothered sending an account confirmation to my old email, which was pretty convenient for me.

Bottom line 

Changing Google accounts was an absolute pain in the butt. There are a few systems in place that made this process easier, but a lot of it needed to be done manually. There should be additional features in place to make this process easier, whether that be exporting and importing systems for Google Drive or YouTube.

And worst of all, this system isn’t very generous towards people who do not want to be reminded of what their old email was. As a trans woman who would rather not look at my deadname whenever I open Gmail, this process offered nothing but headache after headache, and by the end of it, I’m still not fully satisfied.

A Gmail account has pretty much everything you need from an email account. Besides sending and receiving the typical email, it also allows you to set up accounts on millions of other websites easily. 

Gmail is by far the most popular email service around. As of 2022, at least 1.8 billion individuals are using Gmail across the globe. It was introduced way back in 2004 and has steadily grown into the mammoth it is now. A big chunk of the world relies on it for email use, but that doesn’t mean a Gmail account is forever. However popular, there are plenty of reasons to delete your Gmail account. 

You may want to improve your privacy by disconnecting from Google, or perhaps you simply no longer need it. Some may want to do away with Gmail to focus on other email accounts. Whatever your reason, the Gmail deletion process is quick and painless.

Deleting Your Gmail Account

1. First, open your Google account by navigating to accounts.google.com. 

2. On the left-side navigation bar, select Data & privacy. This will take you to your account’s privacy section. 

3. Scroll down to Data from apps and services you use. Click Delete a Google service under Download or delete your data. 

4. You will be redirected to a page to enter your password. 

5. Look for Gmail and click the trash can icon beside it. 

6. A pop-up window will appear where you have to enter an existing email address. You will use this to open other Google services besides Gmail. This email cannot be a current Gmail address. 

7. After you enter your alternate email address, click Send verification email. You will receive an email that lets you confirm your new address. 

8. Open the email mentioned above and click the link inside it. 

9. Select Yes, I want to delete my Gmail account from the prompt shown. 

10. Lastly, click Delete Gmail and confirm your action by clicking Done. 

Gmail allows you to save as many as 25,000 contacts in your directory, but if you have been using Gmail for your business’s email list, then you are bound to hit the limit sooner or later. Besides deleting contacts, you may also want to correct or update them. 

Deleting and editing your contacts are everyday actions that may seem straightforward, but you can never be too careful when handling your email directory. Otherwise, you may lose vital contacts forever.

Before deleting or updating your contacts, it would be wise to back them up. You can do this with the Export feature of Google Contacts. For now, we’ll save that topic for another article. Here are the steps for editing and deleting contacts in Gmail.

How to edit Gmail contacts

1. Navigate to your Google Contacts, then look for the one you need to update.

2. Hover your cursor over the contact and click the Edit contact icon. This will redirect you to your contact’s record page.

3. Update the information, making sure to double-check its accuracy.

4. Click the Save button to save the changes you made.

How to delete Gmail contacts

1. Hover your cursor over the contact you want to remove.

2. Click the More actions icon beside your contact. This will show you a menu specific to that contact.

3. From the menu above, select Delete. Confirm that you want to delete the contact.

Google is rolling out a new Gmail experience that makes it easier for users to switch between other apps including Google Meet and Chat in the same window or tab, and it comes with Android 12's Material You and a noticeable second sidebar.

Introduced back in February, Gmail's new integrated view started rolling out to users on June 28, and is expected to come to everyone over the next couple of weeks. Once available, users will automatically see the new Gmail interface, but will have the ability to opt out and revert back to the old Gmail view we're used to. However, there's more than one way to set it to the way you want. 

• More: How to create folders in Gmail
• How to create a Gmail account
• How to delete spam mail in Gmail once and for all

The big changes include a new navigation sidebar that lets you switch between other Google apps, including Gmail, Google Chat, Google Spaces, and Google Meet. Instead of going to the apps menu and opening a new app in another tab or window, you can now switch between apps in the same window. It's handy if you're not happy with a cluster of open tabs.

Google notes that apps available on the sidebar will vary depending on your Google Workspace edition, meaning if you only have Gmail, then you'll have a Gmail-only navigation menu (similar to how the usual Gmail looks).

Apparently, the new navigation interface also features Material You, the color-themed feature that was introduced with Android 12. So far, it only seems to turn Gmail's color scheme grey or blue, but this can be customized by heading into settings (the gear icon on the top left), clicking "View all," and picking a theme.

Not a fan of the new layout? You can easily revert back to the classic Gmail layout. 

How to revert back to the classic Gmail 

• In Gmail, click on Settings (the gear icon) on the top left. 
• under "See all settings," there will be a block that says "Go back to the original Gmail view." Click on it and you'll have classic Gmail back. 
• You can also click on "See all settings" to revert back. Click on "See all settings."
• Under the "General" tab, navigate to "Main menu" and click on "Original view." 

For those who want to stick with the new Gmail but find the second sidebar annoying, there's a way to get rid of it, too. 

How to customize the sidebar 

• In Gmail, click on Settings (the gear icon) on the top left.
• Click on "See all settings."
• Navigate to the "Chat and Meet" tab.
• Switch "Chat" to "Off" and "Meet" to "Hide the Meet section in the main menu."
• Once done, the sidebar will only feature the Gmail menu bar. 

Whether Google will keep the original Gmail view or completely overhaul Gmail to the new design? Only time will tell. However, if you prefer to have your apps in different windows or tabs, there's a way to keep Gmail the way users are used to. As for other handy Gmail tips, check out how to delete spam mail in Gmail once and for all. 

If you, like many professionals, use digital calendars to schedule and organize their day-to-day activities, then your life will get a bit easier if you know how to add Google Calendar to Outlook. Digital calendars are a good way to easily send invitations and reminders to others. Unfortunately, there is no way for users to send invitations from their Google Calendars to Outlook and vice versa. So, they are forced to use both apps to accommodate different people.

Google Calendar and Outlook each have their own pros and cons. For starters, Outlook is preinstalled on most Windows computers, meaning you can start it up anytime without having to open a browser. Google Calendar, on the other hand, has no desktop app. It requires you to open its website on a browser. This means that it requires more resources from your computer.

While Outlook beats Google Calendar on desktop PCs, the opposite is true with mobile phones. Many Android phones come equipped with Google Calendar and automatically sync once you connect your Google account. To remedy the issue of a dual calendar life, here’s how to combine both calendars on Outlook. 

How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook

1. We will be using the iCal feature of both Google Calendar and Outlook. To do so, first open your Google Calendar. Then, under ”My calendars,” hover on the calendar you want to open with Outlook.

2. Click the Options button beside the calendar of your choice, then click “Settings and sharing.” This action will bring you to that specific calendar’s Settings page. 

3. Scroll down to find “Secret address in iCal format.” Copy this link.

4. Next, go to your Outlook Calendar and click “Add calendar” on the left-side navigation pane. The “Add calendar” window should appear.

5. From the menu shown on the left, click “Subscribe from web.” 

6. Lastly, paste the iCal link in the field provided, add a name, and click Import. Wait for the loading to complete and click Yes if you are asked to add the calendar.

Sometimes it's not enough to just mark mail as Spam. Google's filters aren't 100 percent effective and the occasional junk mail might slip through, finding its way to your inbox. And sometimes you just need to radically cut someone out of your life. You can block messages from particular senders for good with this simple guide.

• How to filter mail in Gmail
• How to recall an email in Gmail
• How to tidy up your inbox using Gmail filters

Blocking a Gmail sender involves three basic actions:

1. Open a message from the unwanted sender.
2. Select "Block [Sender Name]" from the message dropdown menu.
3. Confirm your choice.

Step-by-Step Instructions with Screenshots

1. At Gmail.com, enter your email address or phone number and click Next.

2. Enter your password and click Next.

3. Pull up an email from the repeat-offender and click the three dots to the far right of the sender's name.  

4. Click Block (Sender Name) from the list that drops down.

5. Press Block to confirm.

 You will stop receiving emails from this person. If you have blocker's remorse and want to hear from your contact again, follow these steps.

How to Unblock

1. Click the gear Settings icon on the top right of your inbox. 

 2. Select Settings.

3. Click Filters And Blocked Addresses.

4. Click Unblock at the end of the row of the sender you wish to reinstate.

How to Block Someone

• Previous Tip
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• How to Block Someone in Any Circumstance
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• Block Someone on Google Plus
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• Block Someone On Skype
• Block Friends on Snapchat
• Block Someone on BBM
• Block Someone on Google Hangouts
• Block Someone on WhatsApp
• Block Someone on Outlook.com
• Block Someone on Yahoo Mail

Filters are the unsung hero of Gmail. They’re underused and valuable beyond measure.

Today, we’re going to learn how to set the up. In this example, I’m going to filter all mail from my favorite publication -- The New Yorker -- by giving it a special label. From there, we’ll get it to skip the inbox and wait patiently until I’m ready to read it.

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1. Open Gmail and login if necessary.

2. Click the gear icon and select Settings.

3. Click Filters and Blocked Addresses from the top.

4. Click Create a new filter.

5. Select how you’d like the mail to be filtered. In this example, I’m going to keep it simple and just add The New Yorker to the section marked Has the words.

6. Click Create filter with this search.

7. Check Skip the Inbox and Apply the label.

8. Select an existing label or create a new one.
I’m going to create one called Subscriptions and then press the Create button.

9. Press Create filter. Optionally, you can apply this to your archived mail by checking the box next to the Create filter button.

This isn't our only guide for organizing your inbox, we've got a guide to how to delete old gmail emails — which can come in handy when trying to save space.

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A recent Google Workspace update adds support for drafting emails in Google Docs. The new easy-to-use template follows simple rules we've already grown accustomed to in Gmail and Google Docs. 

The Google Workspace blog post covering the new feature states, "We’re making it easy to collaborate on an email draft in Docs with the new email draft template." This is basically codifying something that people were already doing with a set of new features to make it even easier to go from working on an email in Docs to sending it via Gmail.

Here's a quick look at how to draft emails in Google Docs.

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How to draft emails in Google Docs

• Open a blank Google Doc
• Click on Insert
• Select Building Blocks in the drop down menu
• Choose Email draft

Now you've unlocked all of the new tools that the Google Workspace team has made available. Keep in mind that this feature just started rolling out on March 15, so you may not see it yet, but it should be available to all by April 1. 

As you can see in the Gif provided by Google, the new functionality is rather straightforward and easy.

The Google Workspace team offered the highlights in their blog post saying, "You can mention people in the recipient fields using the @ menu without having to remember their email addresses, and collaborate on the message body using comments and suggestions. When ready to send, simply click the button that is shown alongside an email draft. A Gmail compose window will pop up, with email fields (subject, to, cc, bcc, and body) automatically populated based on the email draft in the document."

While it isn't something you are going to use for every email, for lengthy emails, important emails, or emails that require feedback from multiple team members this is an excellent new tool to check out.

When I reviewed Microsoft Edge last year, I found its performance and experience unparalleled among peers like Google Chrome. But one concern prevented me from accepting that default browser pop-up, and I suspected it could be a fatal dealbreaker. 

“On Edge, Microsoft constantly attempts to push you to use its in-house services,” I wrote and wondered whether Microsoft would get more aggressive once it claimed a larger piece of the browser market. 

Over six months later, Microsoft has, unfortunately, proven me right. Since that review, Edge’s popularity has soared, but so has the amount of bloatware. In the last couple of updates, Microsoft has outfitted Edge with a range of spammy features. The browser now offers loans to users and allows them to split online payments into installments. It has a new price tracker, mini games, a math solver, a reviews aggregator, and more. 

What’s worse, Microsoft has been actively abusing its Windows platform advantage to keep users from switching to other browsers. Not only is changing the default browser more complex and tedious than ever, but Microsoft force installed a ransomware-esque Windows update that launches a full-screen Edge ad users can’t skip or close. Microsoft was punished for pulling similar tricks decades ago with Internet Explorer, and I won’t be surprised if it comes under scrutiny again for its renewed browser ambitions. 

The bottom line is Edge has become intolerable and is no longer the best Chrome alternative. It’s Vivaldi. 

A browser that does everything

Vivaldi has always been the underdog and an offbeat alternative to more popular options like Brave and Edge. Of late, however, Vivaldi’s on an update spree that added a series of functions compelling me to give it a shot. And it turns out, it might be the Chromium browser to beat now that Edge is out of the picture. 

Vivaldi’s biggest strength is that it’s a browser you can make your own. It offers the most versatile set of tools and options to fine-tune how the browser works and looks. Even after a week of use, I’m still discovering new functions every day. What’s more impressive is that it doesn’t make for an overwhelming first-time experience, or require a crash course to learn. Vivaldi strikes a balance between putting the features you need front and center and hiding the rest inside optional sidebars and menus. 

What’s better than one row of tabs? Two rows

When you first fire up Vivaldi, it appears like any other web browser. But as you begin to operate it, you come across features that make it unique. Most browsers let you group tabs, for instance, but on Vivaldi, you can choose to nestle them in a way that works best for you and your device. You can stack them in a layout where you have two rows of tabs or clump them together in an expandable primary tab or on top of each other to save screen space. The ability to add another row of tabs is particularly clever if, like me, you often find organizing and keeping track of tab groups on other browsers clumsy. 

That’s not all. If you’re unsatisfied with Vivaldi’s default tab management despite the layout choices, you can further customize it to your preferences. You can switch between tabs by scrolling on your mouse, adjust their appearance, position the tab bar on any of the four sides, and more. 

In addition to the address bar, Vivaldi houses a couple of sections you can personalize to fit your browsing style. There’s a sidebar on the left where, by default, you will find a host of mini apps, such as a calculator, an RSS reader, a window and tab manager, a calendar, a translator, and your history and downloads. You can also pin websites here like a messaging service’s web app and have a multi-window view. It sounds like a lot, but that’s where Vivaldi’s strengths kick in. You can hide this sidebar entirely or tweak it to eliminate any clutter and include only the panels you need. 

Make your own browser themes

Like most browsers, Vivaldi comes with a catalog of themes you can pick from to switch up the colors of your tabs, accents, menus and more. What sets Vivaldi apart, though, is its built-in editor that lets you modify these themes down to the last pixel, or build one from scratch. Or you can leave it to its default look like me, which itself is quite clean, and automatically adapts to your current web page’s dominant color. If you’ve got Philips Hue lights, Vivaldi can control those too as you browse the web.

Though Vivaldi’s personalization prowess got me initially interested in it, its advanced suite of productivity tools convinced me to stay. The most important of them all is the search function that allows you to look up anything on the browser, including your tabs, history, notes, and more, in an instant. You can also compress a chain of actions into a single command and automate your most frequently accessed workflows. For instance, I created a command chain for the websites I launch as soon as I log into my computer. 

Vivaldi also takes keyboard shortcuts up a notch and offers mouse gestures. So instead of pressing “Cmd/Ctrl + T” to open a new tab, you can hold down your mouse’s right key and move it down. I wasn’t originally sold on this, but after a few days, I found that it’s far quicker once you get the hang of it. 

No more dealing with cookie pop-ups

Like most browsers, Vivaldi is equipped with the usual privacy trappings. It can protect your identity from trackers, block third-party cookies and malicious crypto mining sites. Plus, it can save you the trouble of going through those cookie pop-ups by rejecting them automatically for you. 

For people who are looking to escape Big Tech altogether, Vivaldi recently added its in-house mail and calendar clients. You can either plug in third-party services, such as Gmail and Outlook or sign up for Vivaldi’s privacy-focused alternatives. These apps feature just about everything you’d expect, including offline support. If you spend most of your time in the browser, this integration can come in especially handy as you can quickly access your inbox and appointments from the sidebar or the status bar at the bottom.

Since Vivaldi is based on the same engine as Chrome, it supports extensions from the Chrome Web Store. That perk also allows it to go toe-to-toe with its peers in performance. On my M1 MacBook, Vivaldi didn’t stutter once rendering a page, irrespective of dozens of active tabs and windows and consumed at least 20% less memory than Microsoft Edge. Benchmark results back this up too. On the JetStream 2 test, Vivaldi (177.4) scored a couple of points higher than Microsoft Edge (171.9) and Google Chrome (174.4). 

For me, Vivaldi’s only downside is that it’s not available on iOS and iPadOS. So if you’d like to sync your browsing data and don’t have an Android phone, you’re out of luck. Vivaldi has previously stated it plans to build an iPhone client sometime in the future, but it might take a while since Apple requires all third-party browsers to rewrite their code with the Webkit engine. 

Conclusion: should you switch to Vivaldi? 

Vivaldi has come a long way, and its latest version certainly hits all the right notes to take up the mantle for the best Chromium browser from Edge. It’s neither under the control of a tech giant, such as Microsoft and Google, nor trying to stand out with ambitious features like Brave’s crypto-focused platform. It’s a browser designed for power web users and has no ulterior motives. So if you’ve been looking for a Chromium browser that does it all and does it in a practical manner -- minus the fanfare, Vivaldi is your best bet. 

Emails make the world go round. Whether you’re shooting off a life-changing job application or finally receiving a long-awaited alert notifying you about a PS5 restock, emails are a powerful tool for information. They are the lifeblood of companies big and small, and are sometimes the only means to keep in contact with those we care about.

If cult classic You’ve Got Mail has taught us anything (other than Tom Hanks’ Joe Fox being a ruthless businessman), it's that receiving and replying to messages can make or break businesses — and hearts. But Meg Ryan’s Kathleen Kelly could have conquered the trials and tribulations of modern electronic communication far sooner if she turned to email tracking. 

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With email tracking, users can dispatch an email and know if their message has been opened or clicked on; it’s similar to the oft-dreaded two blue ticks on WhatsApp messages that were sent days ago without a reply. However, email tracking takes it a step further by offering the tools to capture data on how many times the email is opened, when it’s opened, where it's opened, the time spent reading it, as well as click-throughs on links and attachments. 

While this sounds intrusive, it is generally a harmless tool used by the most well-known companies and brands to gain valuable insight into what their recipients enjoy reading and if their products are a hit. Heck, the company you work at is in all likelihood tracking those weekly newsletters.

In the hands of mischievous minds, however, email tracking can be used to fill your inbox with annoying spam and malicious phishing emails. What’s more, it can be used to delve into personal data with a simple click, and all it takes is one invisible pixel. That is a very “Joe Fox” move. 

What is email tracking?

Email tracking is the process of tracking sent emails and monitoring the recipient's activity with them. Often used via your inbox or browser extensions, the tracking software adds a small .GIF or .PNG file in the form of a 1x1 pixel into an email or HTML code of a website. This “spy pixel,” as messaging service Hey puts it, can be found in the header, footer or body of an email. They are impossible to see with the naked eye, meaning anyone can use email tracking without you even batting an eyelid.

As soon as the receiver opens the bugged email, this tiny image is downloaded from the sender’s server, effectively notifying them that the email has been opened and, more importantly, that the email account is active. This practice isn’t hard to come by, as a Princeton University study on email tracking points out that as many as 70% of corporate mailing lists contain tracking technology, with many being from Google-owned third parties.

“We assembled a corpus of commercial mailing-list emails, and [found] a network of hundreds of third parties that track email recipients via methods such as embedded pixels,” the study states. “About 30% of emails leak the recipient’s email address to one or more of these third parties when they are viewed. In the majority of cases, these leaks are intentional on the part of email senders, and further leaks occur if the recipient clicks links in emails.”

From British Airways to HSBC, many companies have been detected to use tracking pixels in sent emails, but pixel tracking can be more problematic when used in combination with Javascript. As ExpressVPN explains, email tracking software has the ability to obtain your IP address, the browser you’re using, what plugins are in use, and even makes it possible to see the exact street you live on.

You can track email, too

Email tracking is found everywhere because it is easily accessible. Install an email tracking app and voilà, you’ll know exactly who is ignoring your emails and how long it takes for them to reply on Gmail, Outlook, or Office 365. Moreover, many of the best ones are completely free to use.

For example, HubSpot’s SalesHub extension offers “live notifications when someone opens or clicks your emails,” and even offers real-time updates on when and the amount of times an email has been clicked on. By simply clicking on the “Track” checkbox placed on your email’s toolbar, you’ll get further insight into a recipient's email habits.

Thankfully, HubSpot does make it clear that its free service should be used responsibly, and that companies should “define proper use of email tracking tools in your company’s privacy policy and disclose when people sign up for email subscriptions.” Although, there’s nothing stopping anyone that uses this service to abide by this rule, so take this statement as more of a cautionary remark rather than strict policy.

Other free tracking software, including Mailtrack, Streak, and Mailalert, are commonly used to benefit the sender and recipient to boost email efficiency and the brand, but cybercriminals may have more malicious benefits in mind. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), “bad email tracking is ubiquitous, secretive, pervasive, and leaky.

“It can expose sensitive information to third parties and sometimes even others on your network,” the article states. Threat actors that send out mass spam emails can obtain a wealth of personal information from a receiver by simply opening an email, and because it’s been opened, they will know this data is relatively current since the email account is active. By knowing your email, IP address, name, interests and possibly even your home address, a low-level hacker can unfortunately do wonders with this information.

So, instead of going down the email tracking rabbit hole, a safer option is to stop it altogether.

How to turn off email tracking

Thankfully, it is extremely easy to stop unwanted senders knowing your email-clicking routines. In fact, if you have a virtual private network (VPN), you’ll already be protected.

From ExpressVPN to CyberGhost, a VPN not only hides your original IP address, but can also constantly change to make it virtually impossible for threat actors to obtain important personal information via email tracking. Any of the best VPN services can fix any privacy issue, but there’s a significantly cheaper way to stop email tracking in its, erm, tracks.

Whether you’re using Gmail or Outlook, there’s a way to disable image loading in emails. Since email tracking uses image files, regardless of its 1x1 pixel size, the spy pixel won’t automatically load in the first place. No pixel, no tracking. Here’s a few steps to keep you secure:

Gmail:

• In Gmail, click on “Settings” and then “General.”
• Under the “Images” option, check the “Ask before displaying external images” option.

Outlook:

• Images are blocked by default on Outlook, but you can still check if this option is switched on. 
• In Outlook, click “File” and then “Options.”
• Navigate to the “Trust Centre” option and then to “Trust Centre Settings.”
• In “Automatic Downloads,” make sure the “Don’t download pictures automatically in standard HTML email messages or RSS items” checkbox is unchecked. 

iOS Mail:

• On your iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app. 
• Tap on “Mail” and navigate to the “Privacy Protection” option. 
• Make sure “Protect Mail Activity” is switched on, as it hides your IP address and loads remote content (like images) privately. 

Outlook

You’ve Got Mail could have been a completely different movie if email tracking was alive and kicking back in the ‘90s. Kathleen Kelly could have discovered the identity of Joe Fox without missing a beat, while Fox could have sneakily snooped on Kelly. Unfortunately, that happens on a daily basis in the 21st century, but there are ways to side-step minefields filled with scammers and malicious phishing emails.

For more ways to keep yourself secure while surfing the web, check out the best security apps to install today. And if you’re still receiving spam mail despite following those aforementioned email tracking counter measures, we’ve found a way for you to delete spam mail in Gmail once and for all. 

Are you wondering how to create a new Gmail account? Whether you need a second (or a seventh) email address or are looking to create your very first email account, Gmail is a fantastic option. 

Google makes the setup quick and easy and Gmail offers some of the most robust email tools and spam filtering on the market, along with 15GB of free storage space, which should be plenty for space for most users. 

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Regardless of the reason for needing a new Gmail account, I'll walk you through the process and we can have it set up in about a minute. 

Here's how to create a new Gmail account:

• Navigate to the Google Account sign-up page.
• Fill in your name, a unique username/email, and a password comprised of at least 8 characters including letters, numbers and symbols.
• Click Next.

• Enter your date of birth and select a response for the gender inquiry.
• You may enter a phone number and/or email address as account recovery options, but this is optional. We don't recommend using your phone number as a 2FA or recovery option, but the recovery email can be helpful. When enabled, you'll receive an email whenever a new device logs into your Gmail account.
• Click Next.

• Read the Privacy and Terms.
• Most people won't read everything, but you should click on More Options and decide whether you would like to opt-out of some of Google's activity tracking. This will impact the personalization of ads and content, but if privacy is more important to you, then choose to not have Google save or use this data.
• Click Agree.

That's it! You are the proud owner of a new Gmail account and Google will automatically take you to your inbox and provide instructions on how to use the account. There's no limit to the number of Gmail accounts that you can have, so if you need another one in the future, just follow these instructions again. Happy emailing!

Many of us have felt the sudden shock of regret strike the pit of our stomachs after clicking send on an unfinished email. Whether you need to correct a typo or didn't mean to CC everyone in the company, Google's handy Undo Send feature in Gmail will let you recall your sent email.

Gmail's Undo Send function is automatically turned on for all users but is set by default to a five-second cancellation period. This gives users a short window to quickly recall the email before it's sent off permanently. Fortunately, you can extend this time by managing the Undo Send feature's settings. Follow our step-by-step guide on how to recall an email and manage the Undo Send feature in Gmail. 

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How to recall an email in Gmail 

You'll only get a set amount of time to recall a sent email, and it can be easy to miss the "Undo" notification before it disappears completely. 

1. Open Gmail and click the "Compose an email" icon to write your email.

2. Click "Send" once you've prepared your email. 

3. Press "Undo" next to the "Message sent" notification. This should pop-up in the bottom-right corner of your screen, just above the Chat tab. 

4. "Sending undone" will appear. The email tab will pop-up so you can continue working on the email like it was never sent. 

How to manage Undo Send settings in Gmail 

If the default five seconds is too short for you to quickly get your email back, you can extend the cancellation period up to 30 seconds. 

1. Click the cog wheel icon to open the Settings menu.

2. Select "See all settings."

3. Once in Settings, navigate to "Undo Send" under the General tab. Click on the drop-down menu to adjust the number of seconds the cancellation period lasts.  Options include 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds. 

4. Before leaving, scroll down to the bottom of the Settings page and click "Save Changes."

You will now be able to select Undo in an extended time period. That should give you more time to decide if your email needs a little bit of touching up or not. 

If you're anything like me, you might be tired of patching up problems in Gmail.

According to Statista, in September 2020, 47% of all emails received worldwide were junk mail — also commonly referred to as spam. Junk mail can pile up, too. You unsubscribe, then somehow end up on ten more lists, unsubscribe again, and the seemingly never-ending saga persists. 

Some spam emails even make it past the countless filters you set up to combat a bombardment of junk emails to an otherwise good email account that you'd like to decisively command. This gets old quick.

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I prefer a more careful (read: one-time) approach to such problems myself, so get ready for an extensive list of step-by-step instructions. Until recently, I was overwhelmed with junk mail coming into my main Gmail account; I had hundreds sent to me daily. As a result, I took action to prevent it from happening further. 

Even if you're one of those people who think their inbox is past the point of no return, stick around because you might be surprised. In 2021, there are countless ways to rid yourself of this problem, and this post explores many of them. 

Block spam senders

If you block a sender who sends you a lot of junk mail, you should no longer receive messages from them. Sometimes an address may fall through the cracks, but reblocking the offending sender usually solves this problem. Blocking a junk mail sender can be done on mobile and desktop versions of the Gmail app, and the process only takes a few seconds. 

On desktops or your laptop, it’s as easy as doing the following (the process is similar on both Android and iOS):

1. Click the icon with the exclamation point. 

2. Choose whether to report the message as spam and unsubscribe, or just report it as spam.

Report spam 

Here's part two of combating email spam: reporting junk mail to help reduce the volume of spam emails you receive. 

By communicating with Google about spam, you're participating in a kind of crowdsourced reporting pool for the greater good. Google does take action against what it considers "spam accounts" and remembers to block the delivery of these messages in the future.

Filter 'em out

Do you ever receive emails that are not spam, but they keep going to that folder anyway? Although this is a separate issue, it still transpires regularly enough to get incorporated into this list. You can perform this action on both mobile and desktop versions of the Gmail client. 

Here's how to set up a spam filter in Gmail. 

• First, log in to your Gmail account.
• Click the gear icon in the top right-hand corner, then click Settings.
• Go to Filters and Blocked Addresses, then click Create a New Filter. 
• Next, type in the email of the sender you want to keep out of your spam folder.
• Click Create Filter.

What about "OK" spam? 

According to Google, Gmail automatically filters out spam by moving such messages to the spam folder. If you want to allow some emails that might be labeled as spam to make it into your inbox, you can create filters that bypass the spam label.

You essentially create an approved sender list of what Google might traditionally classify as spam. This could be a message you have long-awaited, even something from a potential employer. Gmail can group messages not meant to reach spam folders as actual spam, and that can lead to "lost mail" someone said they sent.

To do this, find the message in your spam folder and click the button to report that it’s not spam. These messages will once again find their way to your inbox, even if your spam filter might have normally caught them.

Third-party apps

There are plenty of third-party email apps and add-ons designed to prevent spam, many of which use machine learning to acquire patterns of typical spam-filled emails. Some of them are free, and others have a subscription fee. Some of my favorites are eM Client, MailWasher, and POPFile.

Consider your email's level of exposure

Your email is likely out there somewhere on the Internet, essentially exposed to the world (wide web). You can still control some of the profiles where that information is visible, however. Doing so can protect you against receiving spam emails, but it does take some vigilance. 

To get started, you should opt out of making your email public on social media profiles like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. If you own a domain, it's worth investing in what is called "domain privacy." Domain registrars always extend a service called domain privacy. This service hides your personal information from public view for an additional fee. 

There is only so much you can do using outside apps, and some of the burden does lie on you. It could also be worth it to perform an appraisal of your Internet profile and see where you can remove/hide your email from the public. This is not a small feat, but it is also not an impossible one. 

With a few hours spent and the willingness to clean up your inbox, you can make your email private as it should be. Doing so could protect you from bots that scour the web in search of adding visible emails to mass email lists for email blasts.

Many other creative measures happen to acquire emails illicitly, but taking some or all of these measures could give you back some control of your inbox. 

When all else fails, unsubscribe

This was a large part of what I spent a chunk of time doing, unsubscribing from emails I had admittedly subscribed to at some point. 

For one reason or another, these emails may no longer be relevant, and this is where something I call "the purge" comes into play. Go through your emails and unsubscribe from every email account you wish to no longer hear from; this will help you steer clear of unwanted junk mail from these senders in the future. 

It might take a few rounds to get it right, but this casual chore will eventually pay off, both for desktop and mobile devices.

Most of us are guilty of complaining about unwanted emails or cluttered inboxes from time to time, yet few of us do anything about it. Gmail has powerful filtering options, options that are criminally underutilized. When honed in, and with a little bit of creativity, you too can tame your inbox. And it's not as difficult as you may think. 

The key is to apply filters as they make sense. You can start with a handful, like those mentioned below, but you should always be willing to adapt your filtering strategy as new methods make sense, or new emails flood your inbox that don't trigger any of your existing filters. This is a game of incremental improvement, and each filter should make your life just a little easier. 

Let's get started. For all the tips below, you'll start by clicking the gear icon near your account image in the upper right, clicking the "See all settings" button at the top, and choosing the "Filters and Blocked Addresses" tab. From there, just click "Create a new filter" toward the bottom and you're ready to go.

Spam

Gmail already has great spam filters and you can mark messages as spam to help train the AI to spot new patterns. But there's always that one company that manages to slip by undetected. You've tried unsubscribing from the list. You've tried marking it as spam, and somehow, without fail, it still manages to hit your inbox with each new mailing.

Here's how to fix it. 

1) In the "From" section, type in the email address you want to block. You can also add a wildcard by typing in an asterisk (*) before the @ symbol to filter all emails from that domain.

2) Click the Create filter button.

3) Choose Delete it and click the Create filter button.

Make sure you see important emails

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the emails that you want to make sure you see, but are commonly buried beneath countless emails you don't. You can fix this with filters too.

1) Type the email address in the From section and click the Create filter button. 

2) Choose "Star it" and "Always mark it as important" and then click the Create filter button.

These emails will now have a star and the "Important" label, making them much harder to miss. But if you still have doubts, check the next tip. 

Create a new inbox with folders and labels

If you want to skip the inbox entirely, you can filter important emails to their own folder, automatically, giving you a de facto second (or third, fourth, etc.) inbox. This is handy for filtering work-related emails into their own folder, or perhaps you can use it for coupons, travel details and itineraries, or emails about school, family, or newsletters you subscribe to.

1) Add the email address in the From section and click the Create filter button. You can add multiple email addresses to the same filter by departing each with a comma and a space after the email address.

2) Choose "Skip the Inbox (Archive it)" and "Apply the label."

3) Select a label, or create a new one and keep the name as specific as possible.

4) Click Create filter.

Now, all emails from these addresses will skip the inbox and appear only in the folder you selected. Clicking the folder in your Gmail sidebar will bring up an entirely new inbox with only these messages.

Categorize your spam

A little-known feature of Gmail is that it works even if you modify your email address. Try adding a period or a plus sign anywhere within your email address (before the @gmail.com suffix) and watch as these emails still manage to find your inbox.

Now, the cool thing here is that you can filter these email addresses separately from your main one. I use it to filter email newsletters, automatically, without the need to set up new filters.

1) Subscribe to a newsletter using your newly modified address. Mine looks something like this: bryanmail+tech@gmail.com. Adding the "+tech" suffix after my normal email address tells me that anything with "+tech" is an email newsletter I subscribed to. I can then filter for that modification. 

2) In the "To" section, add your modified email address and click the Create filter button.

3) Click "Apply the label" and then choose your preferred label. I send anything with "+tech" to my "tech newsletters" label, meaning I can use this email when I subscribe to new newsletters and I don't need to manually filter all of them into the appropriate label.

Kill calendar notification emails

My inbox is flooded every day with notifications that so and so has accepted my calendar invite for a meeting. You can filter these too, which is especially useful if you are using a calendar app and you get these notifications on your phone anyway.

1) In the "Subject" section, add "Accepted:" and make sure to use the colon after, and without the space. We don't want to trigger the event when someone is talking about an accepted contract, or some other work-related thing we'd want to see.

2) Click the Create filter button.

3) Check Delete it and click the Create filter button.

These five should get you started with a cleaner inbox, but as we said previously, feel free to experiment and add new filters as they make sense. This is a powerful tool, limited only by your imagination when using it.

You probably have a lot of important information coming through your email, so you might want to know how to create folders in Gmail to keep everything organized. Before we tell you how, we recommend reading our tips on how to delete Gmail spam mail before creating folders as it will make your life a lot easier.

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In Gmail, you can create folders for specific kinds of emails so you can direct email traffic in a fluid and organized way.  It’s not difficult to set up, all it requires is a few simple steps.  With that said, here’s how to create folders in Gmail.

Step 1: Open Gmail

To begin, simply sign into your Gmail account. Once you do, you’ll see all of the emails you have to organize. Once you’re there, go to the settings icon (a little gear in the top right) and click on it.

Once you see the menu, you’ll notice at the top that the first option (in blue) says, “See all settings.” Click this and it will bring you to the next step.

Step 2: Labels

Now you should see a new menu. At the top of this menu, there’s a list of options to click on. You'll see “General,” “Labels,” “Inbox,” “Accounts and Import,” and more. Click on Labels, which will bring you to a screen that gives you ways to manipulate the menu on the left of the Gmail home screen. This is where you can create your own label. Go to the bottom of the Labels menu and click “Create new label” to get started.

Step 3: Making Labels

After you click “Create new label,” you’re almost done. A box will appear telling you to name your new label. When that’s done, you have the option to pick where it goes via the “nest label under” option. Click that option and it will tell you which other labels the new one will go under, and then click create. While you’re here, you can also remove or edit other labels you have in order to fully synchronize your Gmail environment. Happy organizing!

One of the best Outlook tools that have been available for a while now on Android and iOS has been the suggested response feature, and it's finally coming to Windows, which is cause for celebration. The suggested response feature has been around on iOS and Android since 2018, giving users three options of suggested quick responses to email that you can tap and send. 

Microsoft 365 Roadmap released the following description, " When you receive a message in the email that can be answered with a short response, Outlook may suggest three responses that you can use to reply with a couple of clicks. This capability already exists in Outlook on the web, and in Outlook iOS and Android." 

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Text prediction, which has been around a while in Gmail, will also be added to Outlook for Windows. Microsoft said it would be using "Smart Technology" (as if dumb technology were a thing), Outlook will predict text while you type, and users will just use the Tab key to accept the predicted text. 

If you find predictive tech annoying or a hindrance, you can turn it off by doing the following. In Settings > View all Outlook settings > Mail > Compose and reply > Text predictions, and you can turn it off from there. 

Predictive text is a fun and oftentimes a great tool that speeds up workflow but, some do not appreciate the tech and prefer the old school and more personal response method. The new feature will be rolling out this month and available for Office Business insiders in a beta version. 

The Mac Mail app is a powerhouse. It makes it easy to manage multiple accounts, from a number of different email providers. You can easily add filters, smart folders, and quickly unsubscribe from annoying mailing lists in just a few clicks.

But like all email applications, it isn’t always effective at stopping spam. Using the Unsubscribe feature, of course, is usually the easiest way to get rid of mail from unwanted senders, though it doesn’t mean they’ll actually remove you from their lists. In this case, the best course of action is blocking the sender entirely. 

The Block Sender icon appears next to the sender and the message is tagged as blocked. If later you would like to start receiving emails, you can easily unblock them as well. 

1) Click Launchpad on the Dock.

2) Open Mail from the Launchpad.

3) Search the email or sender you want to block.

4) In the email, right-click on the name of the sender you want to block.

5) Click Block from the context menu.

Microsoft has announced a major update to Microsoft Outlook with several new Outlook Calendar features for Windows 10 and the mobile app.  The new-look form factor is a style change to an Outlook Calendar Board.  

The new update is to a more user-friendly format that removes the rigid grid view and exchanging it for a more customizable user experience. You'll be able to organize your workday and improve your workflow with task lists, file attachments, links, reminders directly through the Calendar board without having to use any external applications. It streamlines the process and frees up users instead of bogged them down with multiple moving parts.

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The more free-form style of the calendar board frees the user up to create a more customized and personal workspace within the calendar. Microsoft stated, "on average, people use six tools to track all the things they need to get done," so this new calendar tool should better optimize the Outlook workspace to reduce the number of external programs required for productivity." 

Current Outlook web users can try this for themselves right now by expanding your calendar and selecting "Board" in the views dropdown menu located at the top-right of the page. It hasn't been announced yet when the new feature will show up on the mobile app. 

The other new feature that will be arriving soon is intelligent scheduling assistance. Outlook will suggest optimal time slots for meetings that check availability with other invited meeting attendees to ensure that everyone is free to attend. If there are scheduling conflicts, Outlook will make suggestions to rectify the conflict by moving other meetings around or suggesting a different meeting time.

There isn't an actual date for when all the new features will go live, but you can read Microsoft's full announcement here. The full rollout for both the desktop and mobile apps should happen over the next few months. 

Though the Mail app is undoubtedly a workhorse, there’s no such thing as perfect. For the tinkerers out there, you can get a little closer with some really excellent third-party plugins. There are a number of them out there, whether you’re looking for something to manage multiple accounts, add notes and tags, or organize your inbox, chances are there’s a plugin out there to do it. 

To install these, you first need to understand that it’s not nearly as straightforward as it should be. Though Apple supports these plugins, it doesn’t exactly advertise it. And some are available with installable packages, while others are installed as bundles, meaning installation isn’t the same for every plugin. 

That said, this should work for a majority of Mail plugins, though if it doesn’t you may have to consult the instructions offered by the developer. And don’t forget to enable the plugin once you’re finished.

1) Download the plugin you want to use with Apple Mail.

2) Open the downloaded file from the Downloads folder and follow the installation process.

3) Open the Mail app from the Launchpad.

4) In the drop-down menu, select Preferences.

5) In the Preferences window, on the General tab, click Manage Plug-ins.

6) Select the app from the plug-ins list.

7) Click Apply and Restart Mail, to complete  the process.

The functionality to print an email in Outlook is similar to printing a Word document. If you need to print multiple emails for your record you can do so without opening each email and going through the process to print via the File menu. But this can be done only in the Outlook client and not in the Outlook app. 

1) Select the emails you want to print. 

2) Click File on the menu bar. 

3) Select Print to open print options.

4) Click the Printer dropdown menu to open printer options. 

5) Select a printer. In this example I have selected.

6) Click Print, to print all the selected emails at once.

Gmail is just weeks away from one of its biggest transformations ever. Google is set to bring "dynamic email" to the email service on July 2, following a beta period that ended earlier this year. Chrome, Opera and Safari on desktop should support the feature as well as the Gmail app on iOS and Android.

Built on AMP, dynamic email will allow users to interact with emails in entirely new ways. Instead of simply responding to messages, Gmail users will be able to RSVP to event, fill out surveys, respond to comments and browse images, all directly from within an email.

An example Google gave that I'm especially excited to try out involves Google Docs; With dynamic email, you'll see an up-to-date thread in Gmail and can reply or resolve comments directly within a message. Before, you could only view comments or suggestions someone made to your document within an email, then make changes in a separate Google Docs window. 

MORE: The One Gmail Feature You Should Disable Now

A handful of businesses are already using dynamic email to reduce the barriers to entry for their product or service. As you can imagine, the feature will be particularly useful for advertising because it makes it even easier for customers to respond to an offer. For example, dynamic emails sent by Booking and OYO Rooms let users navigate hotel rooms from within an email, without ever having to visit the travel fare sites. 

But the feature goes beyond e-commerce. Pinterest is using dynamic emails so that people can more easily browse pins and save them to their board. And if you ever receive a dynamic email from Doodle, an online service for setting up meetings, you can quickly book a meeting time right from your inbox.

Other companies approved by Google to use dynamic email include Despegar, Ecwid, Freshworks, Nexxt and redBus. That's a rather small list, but one that is expected to grow as the feature picks up steam. If you're worried about receiving actionable emails from strange domains, we don't blame you. Fortunately, Google will vet each company before allowing them to use the feature.

Dynamic email should be enabled by default, but if it isn't, you'll need to make sure the display external images option in the Gmail settings menu is turned on. If you prefer a traditional email experience, you'll have the option to disable dynamic email.

From the sounds of it, dynamic email could fundamentally change the way we use Gmail, as long as it's properly implemented. If you can complete an action --- like booking a room --- from start to finish, then the feature could save valuable time and prevent you from opening additional webpages.

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Gmail's nudging feature, which brings emails back to your inbox when a reply hasn't been sent by you or a recipient,  is great and all if you need constant reminders. But if you're anything like me, this feature is more of an overreach, and the result of what happens when software gets too clever for its own good.

If you sent someone an important email and you're really looking forward to a reply, you don't need your email client to tell you that you haven't received a message. You already know.

Fortunately, you have the power to stop Gmail's nudging antics, provided you know where to look. Also, you can select which nudging you want to remove, in case you want reminders about emails you've yet to respond to, and no reminders about people not returning your email.

Here's how to disable nudging via Gmail.com:

1. From Gmail.com, click the Settings icon.

2. Select Settings.

3. Under Nudges, uncheck "Suggest emails to reply to" to stop Gmail from reminding you about messages you've yet to answer. Uncheck "Suggest emails to follow up on" to turn off Gmail's reminders for messages others haven't answered.

To find these settings in the Gmail app:

1. Tap the Menu button.

2. Tap Settings.

3. Select your account.

4. Under Nudges, tap Replies and follow-ups.

5. Uncheck "Suggest emails to reply to" to stop reminders about messages you've yet to answer, and uncheck "Suggest emails to follow up on" to disable off Gmail's reminders regarding messages you've sent that went unanswered.

This isn't our only guide for mastering Gmail, check out our instructions for how to delete old Gmail emails — which you'll need once Google starts asking you to pay because of how much space your email is taking up.

 Credit: Laptop Mag

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Ex-lead designer for Gmail, Michael Leggett, got sick and tired of Gmail, so he decided to launch a free Google Chrome extension called Simplify that cleans it right up for you.

In an interview with FastCompany, Leggett commented on the current state of Gmail, saying that "it’s like Lucky Charms got spewed all over the screen." That isn't far from the truth. Interestingly enough, Leggett also co-founded Inbox, which was another simplistic email app that people enjoyed before Google effectively killed it in March 2019.

Once you download and activate Simplify, the extension optimizes Gmail to give you more real estate for your emails and it even strips down the top bar and sidebar by leaving only a few key functions. It also completely removes the Gmail logo as well, which is nice.

However, I don't really find the extension all that helpful. Sure, it cleans up the interface a little bit, but I don't have immediate access to my calendar to check out my scheduled meetings. I also can't access Google's drop down of additional apps, so I can't quickly switch over to Google Docs from there either, which is frustrating.

You're able to switch the extension on in your Gmail after you've downloaded it to see the difference yourself, but there's not an actual toggle button, so the only way to turn it off (from what I've seen) is to uninstall it.

Despite my issues with it, Simplify has nearly 15,000 users according to the Chrome Web Store and has received some great feedback from users, with a total of 82 reviews and an average of 5 stars.

If you're looking for another way to clean up your inbox, we've got a guide to how to delete old gmail emails.

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Microsoft has acknowledged a major breach of its Outlook.com email service that left a portion of its user base at risk of having their messages read by hackers. MSN and Hotmail users may be affected, too. Microsoft has not disclosed how many accounts were affected, but an anonymous source told Motherboard that it was "a large number."

Credit: dennizn/Shutterstock

On Friday (April 12), Microsoft sent notifications to some of its Outlook.com users, informing them that "individuals outside Microsoft" had for a period of nearly three months had the ability to view those users' email addresses, see their subject lines, and determine the names of their folders.

In that earlier notification, according to The Verge, Microsoft didn't make any mention of unauthorized intruders being able to see the contents of email messages. Motherboard on Sunday, however, said that Microsoft issued a separate notification to about 6 percent of its Outlook.com users, telling them that in addition to the information above, hackers might have also seen their actual email contents. Microsoft confirmed that to Motherboard.

MSN and Hotmail accounts were also hacked, according to Motherboard's source, although Microsoft has not confirmed those details.

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According to Microsoft's first notification, one of its support technicians had his or her access credentials stolen by an attacker, allowing the attacker to break into the support interface and access the company's webmail back-end systems. The intrusion lasted from Jan. 1, 2019 to March 28, 2019 before it was discovered and turned off, according to Microsoft.

Motherboard's source, however, said that the intrusion lasted for six months. Microsoft denied that in a statement to The Verge.

"Our notification to the majority of those impacted noted that bad actors would not have had unauthorized access to the content of emails or attachments," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "A small group (~6 percent of the original, already limited subset of consumers) was notified that the bad actors could have had unauthorized access to the content of their email accounts, and was provided with additional guidance and support."

It is not clear how Motherboard's source knows all this inside information, but the source apparently "witnessed the attack in action," notified Motherboard before Microsoft disclosed the intrusion and provided screenshots as proof.

The attack appears to be confined to Microsoft's webmail accounts, which include Outlook.com, Hotmail and MSN. It does not affect accounts associated with the desktop Outlook Express email client software or enterprise Outlook email servers and clients. Corporate users who use their own domains for Outlook.com email were also unaffected by the hack, it would appear.

Microsoft hasn't said exactly how many users were affected and what the attackers might have done with the data they might have accessed. The company did say, however, that the intrusion has been addressed and users are no longer being targeted.

This post originally appeared on Tom's Guide.

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Desktop alerts straddle the area between useful and annoying. It’s useful at times you’re waiting for an important email, or in situations where your inbox isn’t constantly being bombarded with new messages. For those who get a lot of email, it’s undoubtedly a detriment to productivity. That said, there’s still a time and a place for notifications, so long as you can tune them out, or effectively manage them.

Here’s how to get Gmail notifications in your browser.

Settings in Windows

1. Open the Start menu by clicking the Windows icon at the bottom left of the Desktop.

2. Choose Settings from the list of available options.  

3. Click Systems from the top left of the screen.

4. Select Notifications and actions.

5. Set Google Chrome to On. Do the same for other browsers, if you open Gmail in other browsers.

6. Click X to close the window.

Settings in Gmail

1. Click the gear icon in the upper right corner of a Gmail window.

2. Click Settings in the drop-down menu.

3. Scroll down to Desktop Notification options. 

4. Select the New mail notifications on option.

5. Scroll down to the end of the page and click Save Changes.

Credit: Microsoft

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Google's Gmail is turning 15 on Apr. 1. And to celebrate that birthday, the company has some new features planned for its popular email platform.

In a blog post on Monday (Apr. 1), Google's Director of Product Management at G Suite Jacob Bank outlined a variety of new features coming to Gmail. Most notably, Google is rolling out a new Write Now, Send Later feature that lets you write important e-mails whenever you want and now have the option of scheduling them to send at a later time. 

When the feature is turned on for your account, you'll see a new drop-down arrow in the Send box when you're composing a message in the browser. After writing your message, click the drop-down arrow and choose "Schedule Send." A time-and-date selector will then appear, allowing you to choose when you can send your e-mail. Gmail will then send the message at your requested time.

Bank also revealed that the company is expanding its Smart Compose service, which helps users draft new emails without needing to type in repetitive words and phrases, to Android. Bank added that the feature will be made available to iOS users "soon."

Google says that Smart Compose is catching on with Gmail users. The feature predicts what users want to say and suggests a word or phrase that they can input with a single button press. According to Bank, it saves Gmail users from needing to type 1 billion characters each week.

In addition to a new mobile rollout, Bank said that Smart Compose will now intelligently adapt to how you write and stay in your voice. It'll also evaluate a message's content and suggest a subject line.

Looking ahead, Bank said that Google will continue to work on Gmail to make it "even smarter and more useful" for its users. He didn't say when all of the features would be available, but since updates often roll out over time, you might see it pop up in Gmail sooner than later.

This post originally appeared on Tom's Guide — to learn about keeping your Gmail account from getting out of hand, read our guide on how to delete old Gmail emails like an efficient pro.

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Outlook comes pre-packaged with several default Quick Steps. If you followed our previous tutorial, you may have even created your own. If that’s the case, you’ll often find that it needs a bit of tweaking to perform just the way you had intended it. Or, perhaps you no longer need a Quick Action you previously made.

Luckily, it’s a pretty simple fix to edit or delete it.

To edit a Quick Step:

1. Open Outlook and select the Home tab.

2. Right-click the Quick Step you wish to edit in the Quick Steps box. This should appear by default in the Home tab. If you haven’t set any Quick Steps, it’ll appear blank.

3. Click Edit from the list of available options.

4. Modify the Quick Step actions to your liking. Here you can choose a number of new options to edit the behavior of your previously defined Quick Action.

5. Click the Save button to complete the modification.

To delete a Quick Step:

1. Open Outlook and select the Home tab.

2. Right-click the Quick Step you’d like to delete from the Quick Steps box. This should appear by default in the Home tab. This will appear blank if you haven’t set any Quick Steps.

3. Click Delete from the Shortcut menu.

4. Click Yes to save.

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One of Outlook’s most underused features is undoubtedly Quick Steps. These easy-to-use shortcuts allow you to automate repetitive actions to avoid unnecessary clicks. For the email power user, Quick Steps are an indispensable tool you should look to add to your email workflow.

There are several of these Quick Steps included by default in Outlook, but today we’re going to look at creating our own. Here’s how to do it.

1.  Open Outlook and ensure that the Home tab is the active one. If it’s not, click Home to navigate to the right tab.

2. In the Quick Steps action box, click Create New.

3. In the Edit Quick steps screen, name your Quick Step in the Name text field.

4. Select an Action to assign your new Quick Step. You can do this by choosing the appropriate Action from the drop down list.

5. Next we’ll assign it a Shortcut key. Select a key combination from the drop down menu to make it the active Shortcut key. This allows you to type your Shortcut on the keyboard, rather than selecting the action with your mouse.

6. Click the Finish button to complete the process.

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