Gmail Review

I started using Gmail as a secondary email address after my primary one was just getting too buggy for me.  Since it is made by Google, I figured it would be a high quality product and it is - for the most part.  

Learning about Labels: After I started using Gmail, I learned a lot about using Labels as opposed to folders.  I liked this philosophy so much that I do the same thing at work now!  Instead of trying to sort mail out into folders, all mail essentially stays in your inbox and you just label it whatever you'd like.  I have dozens and dozens of filters set up to auto-label my mail.  This makes it so I can easily filter my mail by Restaurants, Gift stores, etc.  As you can see by my photo, I haven't clicked my MyPoints emails in awhile!

Although I do like labels over folders, I do still wish I could add a folder or two here and there for things like "save" or "completed" that I don't really want to delete but also don't need in my Inbox anymore.  I will survive without this though.

Searching is Neat: My primary email does have search capabilities, but Gmail's search is so much better and easier to use.  Much like Google search, you just type in key words and it returns a list of emails that match.  

Threads are Cool, but sometimes Confusing: One of Gmail's greatest feature is the thread.  When people reply to your emails, the previous emails are all connected so you can scroll through the whole back and forth thread all on one page.  While this is great, there is one thing that bugs me about threads.  If two emails come in around the same time and have the same subject/from fields, Gmail links them as a thread even though they are essentially separate emails.  For example, as my photo shows my InboxDollars emails often come in close to the same time.  They are really two separate emails and I need to read/click them both for points, but Gmail links them together.  

Deleting with threads is also an issue if you just want to delete one reply.  Sometimes I've accidentally deleted an entire thread when I just wanted to delete the latest reply.  I've learned to deal with this by not deleting any part of a thread if I want to save some of it.

Overall Gmail is worth it. After all, I have only used 1% of my space since joining and I have 1000s of emails stored.  While the labels may confuse at first, I grew to like them better than folders (for the most part).  Oh - and it's Free!  Enjoy!!