
Ask HN: Gmail feature you just can't live without. - sarvesh
What features in gmail or your favorite email service that can't live without? What features in your email service help improve your productivity.
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joeblubaugh
Threaded conversations & multiple labeling. This just destroys the folder
metaphor other apps use.

~~~
buugs
Labels has to be the most useful feature there is especially when you get to
use incoming filters to catch all the mail you want and pre-organize it.

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pg
Being able to archive stuff and find it again by searching, instead of having
to organize old email into folders. I never realized this till Gmail, but
folders were just a clumsy, manual precomputed search result. (So are most
book indexes.)

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geuis
Search. Absolutely the most important feature I use.

~~~
kqr2
I use gmail to send myself technical notes constantly. The search feature is
invaluable for looking them up again.

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tralfam
Spam filter. Gmail has blocked 2000 spam in the last 30 days. Spam almost
never makes it past that filter.

Second is the ability to easily manipulate large amounts of email. I mean,
easily archive, make read, etc. any amount of email through search. I like to
see when people follow me on twitter via email. I get an email everytime,
which means there is a ton of email that I want to only look at once. Gmail
allows me to go: Search:"Twitter", then "Select All", Archive. Now all that is
out of my inbox.

~~~
xenophanes
You can only do 100 emails at a time, though...

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jmonegro
e-mail :D

But seriously, a good, no, _great_ spam filter.

~~~
intranation
Seems to me that the spam filter has gotten worse lately--I've had a false
positive for the first time I can remember, and regularly get 1 or 2 spam
emails in my inbox each day. It's a testament to Gmail's normal spam
performance that this shocks me, but shock me it does.

~~~
jmonegro
That _is_ true for me as well. I wonder what happened.

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bingaman
'Send and Archive' from the labs. Once I've replied to an email, 9 times out
of 10 having an email sitting in my inbox is pointless.

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solutionyogi
1\. Speed (I think it's faster than Outlook in almost all operations) 2\. VIM
like keyboard shortcuts

1 and 2 _combined_ makes it a winner for me. :)

~~~
Prolitheus
Everything should have Vim key bindings.

~~~
progLiker
Vi like keys definitively for me too.

Every thing not beeing a "full-blown" editor should have bindings to support a
subset of your favorite keymap. So those who like Emacs or Vi, or Wordstar for
that matter, could leverage their habits.

------
mlinsey
Search, threaded conversations, the excellent spam filter, and excellent
integration with Google Calendar.

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vaksel
ability to use it on my own domain.

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rokhayakebe
Shortcuts On. I almost never use my mouse with Gmail.

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zackola
\- keyboard shortcuts \- best spam filter on planet (although it seems a few
obvious ones have slipped through recently) \- search

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zecg
Spam filter, IMAP, threads, importing from other accounts (for those in which
I can't just set .forward). Search. Mailbox size.

------
Hexstream
Rule-based action system (filters). I wish such intuitive and user-friendly
programmability was part of more services.

------
yan
Keyboard shortcuts, and auto-filtering to different labels. I'm actually quite
obsessive with my filters.

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da5e
The "send to" feature using Gmail is my favorite. Combined with the ability to
turn the email into a Google document it lets me research, write and format
articles or web pages without ever leaving "the cloud".

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andrewl-hn
I use Yahoo! Mail for historical reasons. I receive about 12-20 emails per
day. Besides writing and reading emails I use Search - that's the only thing I
really need. I also started using folders this year: the folder names are
2005, 2006, ... 2008 :) Current year emails are stored in inbox. On average
day I spend very little time on emails, though.

I have a Gmail account, too, but I haven't found any Gmail-specific features I
would use. Conversations or labels are neat and my spouse adores them. As for
me I just don't care as long as my search box is working.

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jtuyen
I have to say it's the lab features. With all the cool addon features you can
enable on the fly. Canned responses and Undo features is the top 2 I can't
live without.

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jerryji
1\. label 2. spam filter 3. search 4. thread 5. archive

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manticor
Searchable archive. I don't know how many times this has saved me, and how
many times I was screwed by Yahoo!

------
pt
Unlimited email addresses for my Inbox with a pattern such as myid-*@yahoo.com
(e.g. myid-ycombinator@yahoo.com). Great for spam protection when registering
on little known websites, etc. This is provided in the Address Guard feature
in Yahoo email.

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mimmo
In no particular order: labels, filters, spam filter and the ability to search
everything.

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bayareaguy
I use <http://www.fastmail.fm/mail/familyplans.html> because it allows me to
trivially manage everything related to email for my entire family.

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enomar
Mute

~~~
joeyo
I don't fully understand this feature. I presume it does something different
than archive, but I haven't figured out what.

Edit: Ah, it keeps future messages in the thread out of the inbox too. Neat.

~~~
enomar
I don't filter anything, but I use mute aggressively.

This ensures that I see all threads at least once, but if I'm not interested
in the thread, I never see it again.

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alanthonyc
I'm addicted to the temporary passwords on yahoo mail. I use them all the time
when signing up on random sites.

Has anyone else made the switch from this to gmail?

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ruchi
Pop and forwarding.

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xsc
Filters + Archive.

Keeps my life in check.

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ujjwalg
interface of gmail on iPhone.. I just love it..

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vivekamn
keyboard short cuts.

