Tag Archives: G Suite

Summary: Next 2019 Announcements

Google Cloud Next 2019 is happening now in San Francisco. To learn more about the event and tune into sessions, click here.

For a summary of the announcements from the event, see our Cloud blog posts about how we’re helping businesses work faster, smarter and more collaboratively in G Suite, and increasing trust in Google Cloud with visibility, control and automation.

For details of today’s announcements, see the posts on this blog:

Keep an eye on the G Suite Updates blog for more announcements throughout the event.

Increase trust in cloud data security with Access Transparency

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing 

We’re making Access Transparency for G Suite generally available. Access Transparency enables you to get more visibility into actions taken by Google staff related to your data. You can view the reason for each access, including references to specific support tickets where relevant, which may help you support your audit requirements.

Access Transparency is available to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers only.

Who’s impacted 

Admins only

Why you’d use it 

At G Suite, we work hard to earn and maintain trust with our customers. Access Transparency supports this commitment to customer trust by giving you fine grained logs of actions taken by Google staff and the reason for each access, including references to specific support tickets where relevant.

Access Transparency may help you:
  • Verify why Google is accessing your data, such as fixing a fault or attending to your requests. 
  • Bring your audit controls closer to what you can expect on premise. 


How to get started 




A Sample view of the new report for G Suite Access Transparency 

Additional details 

Access Transparency will allow admins to:

  • View the reason for data access, including references to specific support tickets where relevant. 
  • Verify why Google staff is accessing your data, such as fixing a fault or attending to your requests. 
  • View and download logs to help you support your regulatory audits or data archival needs, showing extensive information such as accessor location, access justification, and the action taken on a specific resource. 


Helpful links 




Availability 

Rollout details 

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (longer than 15 days for feature availability) starting on April 20, 2019. 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (longer than 15 days for feature availability) starting on April 20, 2019. 


G Suite editions 

  • Available to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education edition only. 
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, and G Suite for Nonprofits 


On/off by default?

  • This feature will be ON by default.


Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Google Voice for G Suite: Cloud telephony with the intelligence and security of Google Cloud

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing 

Google Voice is now generally available as an add-on to G Suite. Voice for G Suite is a cloud-based phone system that’s optimized for businesses of all sizes. G Suite customers can use it to deploy and manage phone numbers at scale with the intelligence and security of Google Cloud. Google Voice offers:

  • Smart cloud telephony for end users 
  • Simple provisioning and management for admins 
  • Easy adoption and migration at scale 


Google Voice is available to all G Suite customers through an additional licence. Find more information about Google Voice availability and pricing here.

Who’s impacted 

Admins only

Why you’d use it 

Google Voice integrates with Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet to provide a complete solution for communication with colleagues, customers, and partners from anywhere at any time. Specifically, Google Voice adds:

Smart cloud telephony for end users 

  • Get a phone number that works from anywhere, on any device, so you can place and receive calls wherever you’re doing work. 
  • Use intelligent capabilities to transcribe voicemails and block spam calls to help minimize unwanted distractions. 
  • Increase efficiency through integrations with other G Suite products, like Calendar, Contacts, Hangouts Chat, and Hangouts Meet. 

Simple management for admins 

  • Use one place - the Admin console - to manage Voice global users, numbers, porting, and billing. 
  • Set up new phone numbers as easily as adding a user to G Suite. 
  • Easily provision and deploy via simple administration tools 

Scalable adoption and migration 

  • Migrate smoothly with integrated number porting to help prevent interruption of key business processes. 
  • Leverage Google’s text-to-speech technology to automatically create call menus in nine languages to manage and route callers without worrying about recordings or translations. 
  • Give users permission to choose a number and set up their service independently without admin involvement. 

How to get started 



Availability 

Google Voice is available to all G Suite customers through an additional licence. Find more information about Google Voice availability and pricing here.



Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Exploring new possibilities in cloud-based education technology

Editor’s note:We’re at Google Cloud Next ‘19 this week in San Francisco. If you’re attending Next ’19, visit the Industry Solutions booth and follow along on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.

The best educators foster a culture of curiosity. They know that students who ask questions are the ones who grow up to become researchers, inventors and life-long learners. At Google Cloud Next ‘19, we’re showcasing how teachers can integrate the right technology to help them engage all students, while encouraging agency and a love of learning.

As of today, 90 million teachers and students are using G Suite for Education worldwide. As the numbers grow, so do we, adapting our solutions to meet the changing needs of learners, educators, researchers and administrators everywhere.

Many of these new features are ones that educators and administrators can use to deliver more personalized learning, in ways that work for each individual student. Here’s a look at the latest G Suite updates that bring cloud-based enhancements to the classroom.

Learning for all

New updates to Hangouts Meet and Slides make learning more accessible for everyone.

  • Closed captions in Google Slides (only on Chrome web browsers) use machine learning to turn on automated closed captioning when you’re presenting. Captions are currently available in the U.S. in English only.

  • Also rolling out today, automatic live captions in Hangouts Meet can be turned on to add captioning to virtual professional development sessions or remote lessons. Powered by Google’s speech recognition technology, this feature provides support and the ability to follow along in Hangouts Meet, especially for those who are hearing impaired or English as a New Language Learners.

  • Starting today, you can insert audio files directly into Slides from Drive, enhancing presentations with short or long clips, and especially useful for flipped learning lessons.

Now you can turn on closed captions in Hangouts Meet

                                    Now you can turn on closed captions in Hangouts Meet.

Fostering better collaboration

We’re also making a few updates to support the collaboration that happens within G Suite.

  • Collaborate on Microsoft Office lets students and educators work together on Microsoft Office files in real-time, directly from G Suite. This means that starting today, you can edit Office files from Google Docs, Slides and Sheets, without having to worry about converting file types. This also allows you to tap into G Suite features, like the Explore, while using Office.

  • Now in beta, Hangouts Chat in Gmail replaces Classic Hangouts in Gmail with an improved chat experience, making it easier for students to collaborate with each other or with their instructors.

  • Available now, Hangouts Meet on Jamboard lets educators deliver lessons remotely to students who are unable to come into school, teach higher education classes and hold meetings directly from Jamboard.

  • Google Voice gives educators and administrators a unique phone number that works from anywhere, on any device, perfect for communication with parents and guardians. Google’s AI is built in to help you transcribe voicemails and block spam calls. Voice takes care of assigning a phone number, porting and billing, making it easy for admins to provision and manage. Google Voice is available now as an add-on subscription.

Boosting productivity

Educators, researchers and IT administrators need access to data to help them make well-informed decisions. The following new updates help institutions use data to work smarter and build a more effective learning and teaching experience.

  • Coming soon, connected Sheets will let you collaborate on up to 10 billion rows of BigQuery data right from within Sheets, without needing SQL. You can use the Sheets interface to view learner data (like grades), analyze progress with formulas and pivot tables and visualize results with charts.

  • Schedule send in Gmail, a feature that’s live today, lets you schedule email to be sent at a more appropriate date or time, which is helpful if you’re working across time zones, or want to avoid interrupting someone’s vacation.

  • Comparison in Docs, which will be available soon, streamlines marking assignments by letting you compare two Google Docs and review the differences as suggested edits in a new Doc.

  • Also coming soon, themes allows you to quickly style multiple Sheets element—like charts and pivot tables. This helps keep style consistent throughout your spreadsheets.

  • With metadata in Drive, you’ll soon be able to edit the metadata, or information that provides information about other data, of files in Drive to better organize and search your educational materials. For example, you can create a saved search to instantly find all files tagged “lesson plan” or aligned to a certain standard.

Connected Sheets expands the capabilities of Sheets to up to 10 billion rows

        Connected Sheets expands the capabilities of Sheets to up to 10 billion rows.

Expanding the reach of educators

G Suite Enterprise for Education provides best-in-class teaching and learning tools for education institutions. Now, with Google Voice and updates to Hangouts Meet, educators, researchers and administrators can reach even more learners. Below are three updates that will be available soon.

  • Public live streaming means you can now live stream over Hangouts Meet to up to 100,000 out-of-domain users, especially useful for distance learning or online course offerings.

  • With Hangouts Meet, we’ve increased the number of participants to up to 250, perfect for large online lectures across time zones.

  • Mobile audio allows you to use your mobile device on audio-only mode during lessons over Hangouts Meet. This makes lessons more accessible, even on poor network connections.

These updates open new possibilities for our 90 million teachers, administrators, and learners using G Suite for Education.

The cloud demystified: How it works and why it matters

Whether you’re backing up photos or streaming our favorite TV shows, you may know it’s all made possible by the cloud. But for a lot of us, that’s where the understanding ends. With Next ’19, Google Cloud’s annual customer conference, this week, it’s a good time to ask: What is this cloud, anyway?

Before cloud, businesses maintained fleets of computers (known as “servers” in tech speak) to create websites and apps, and to equip employees with the software needed to build them. Those computers stayed in a server room or a nearby data center, connected by an internal network and to the broader internet. A company’s IT team had to monitor all those computers, network cables and other equipment—and keep it all working for employees, under budget. So that meant that every few years, the IT team bought new computers and took care of any maintenance and upgrades, like adding a new networking line or new software.

Cut to today: we have faster computing speeds and better internet connectivity, and these have made it easier for computers around the world to connect quickly. It’s no longer necessary for businesses to own servers and data centers. Since Google already has a massive global network—made up of things like our own data centers and undersea cables—we can provide that infrastructure to businesses so they can build products and services. In a nutshell, that’s what Google Cloud is—access to Google’s global infrastructure and all the state-of-the-art tools we’ve created over time to serve Google’s billions of users.

This new way of building in the cloud has resulted in changes to the way that companies use computers and other technology.

Why is the cloud such a big deal?

The cloud took the tech world by storm, and it keeps growing for consumer and business uses. Companies want to use the newest, fastest technology, which isn’t possible when you’re only buying new computers every few years.

Public cloud providers allow companies to use the newest technology without having to buy and maintain it themselves. Google Cloud, for example, maintains complicated networks that can quickly move data around the world. Keeping information secure, a challenge for businesses, is also easier with the cloud, since encryption is built in. Plus, the huge scale of cloud means it can run apps faster.

Cloud companies can also be more efficient with space and power. At Google, we buy enough wind and solar to offset the electricity we use, so our customers can get sustainability benefits they might not get on their own.
Cooling towers at a data center in Belgium.png

Cooling towers at a data center in Belgium

How does cloud affect your everyday life?

When businesses started using the cloud, their customers started using the cloud, too. It makes lots of what we do on our phones, tablets, and laptops possible. For example, Gmail became popular pretty quickly, because it offered a lot more storage so you could keep all your emails—even ones with large attachments. Gmail works because instead of storing emails on one limited server somewhere, a giant network of servers stores those emails. When you check your email, a server in one of those data centers is finding and downloading your newest emails and routing them to your computer or phone. Plus, because Gmail is cloud-based, this opens up opportunities for machine learning to help you in ways you might not notice, like blocking phishing and spam attempts to your inbox.  

What do people talk about at a cloud conference?

When 30,000 or so people converge in San Francisco at Google Cloud Next ’19 this week, they’ll be choosing from hundreds of sessions, panels, and tutorials to learn about cloud computing. Some attendees may be just getting started with the cloud and need to learn the basics, while others are exploring advanced concepts like AI and machine learning. Lots of the sessions explain how Google Cloud-specific products can be used. There are sessions on connecting products from outside of Google Cloud into ours and showing business users how to move their data into the cloud.

That’s your start to understanding cloud. If you want to learn more, tune in to our Next livestream all week.

Source: Gmail Blog


The cloud demystified: How it works and why it matters

Whether you’re backing up photos or streaming our favorite TV shows, you may know it’s all made possible by the cloud. But for a lot of us, that’s where the understanding ends. With Next ’19, Google Cloud’s annual customer conference, this week, it’s a good time to ask: What is this cloud, anyway?

Before cloud, businesses maintained fleets of computers (known as “servers” in tech speak) to create websites and apps, and to equip employees with the software needed to build them. Those computers stayed in a server room or a nearby data center, connected by an internal network and to the broader internet. A company’s IT team had to monitor all those computers, network cables and other equipment—and keep it all working for employees, under budget. So that meant that every few years, the IT team bought new computers and took care of any maintenance and upgrades, like adding a new networking line or new software.

Cut to today: we have faster computing speeds and better internet connectivity, and these have made it easier for computers around the world to connect quickly. It’s no longer necessary for businesses to own servers and data centers. Since Google already has a massive global network—made up of things like our own data centers and undersea cables—we can provide that infrastructure to businesses so they can build products and services. In a nutshell, that’s what Google Cloud is—access to Google’s global infrastructure and all the state-of-the-art tools we’ve created over time to serve Google’s billions of users.

This new way of building in the cloud has resulted in changes to the way that companies use computers and other technology.

Why is the cloud such a big deal?

The cloud took the tech world by storm, and it keeps growing for consumer and business uses. Companies want to use the newest, fastest technology, which isn’t possible when you’re only buying new computers every few years.

Public cloud providers allow companies to use the newest technology without having to buy and maintain it themselves. Google Cloud, for example, maintains complicated networks that can quickly move data around the world. Keeping information secure, a challenge for businesses, is also easier with the cloud, since encryption is built in. Plus, the huge scale of cloud means it can run apps faster.

Cloud companies can also be more efficient with space and power. At Google, we buy enough wind and solar to offset the electricity we use, so our customers can get sustainability benefits they might not get on their own.
Cooling towers at a data center in Belgium.png

Cooling towers at a data center in Belgium

How does cloud affect your everyday life?

When businesses started using the cloud, their customers started using the cloud, too. It makes lots of what we do on our phones, tablets, and laptops possible. For example, Gmail became popular pretty quickly, because it offered a lot more storage so you could keep all your emails—even ones with large attachments. Gmail works because instead of storing emails on one limited server somewhere, a giant network of servers stores those emails. When you check your email, a server in one of those data centers is finding and downloading your newest emails and routing them to your computer or phone. Plus, because Gmail is cloud-based, this opens up opportunities for machine learning to help you in ways you might not notice, like blocking phishing and spam attempts to your inbox.  

What do people talk about at a cloud conference?

When 30,000 or so people converge in San Francisco at Google Cloud Next ’19 this week, they’ll be choosing from hundreds of sessions, panels, and tutorials to learn about cloud computing. Some attendees may be just getting started with the cloud and need to learn the basics, while others are exploring advanced concepts like AI and machine learning. Lots of the sessions explain how Google Cloud-specific products can be used. There are sessions on connecting products from outside of Google Cloud into ours and showing business users how to move their data into the cloud.

That’s your start to understanding cloud. If you want to learn more, tune in to our Next livestream all week.

Source: Gmail Blog


The cloud demystified: How it works and why it matters

Whether you’re backing up photos or streaming our favorite TV shows, you may know it’s all made possible by the cloud. But for a lot of us, that’s where the understanding ends. With Next ’19, Google Cloud’s annual customer conference, this week, it’s a good time to ask: What is this cloud, anyway?

Before cloud, businesses maintained fleets of computers (known as “servers” in tech speak) to create websites and apps, and to equip employees with the software needed to build them. Those computers stayed in a server room or a nearby data center, connected by an internal network and to the broader internet. A company’s IT team had to monitor all those computers, network cables and other equipment—and keep it all working for employees, under budget. So that meant that every few years, the IT team bought new computers and took care of any maintenance and upgrades, like adding a new networking line or new software.

Cut to today: we have faster computing speeds and better internet connectivity, and these have made it easier for computers around the world to connect quickly. It’s no longer necessary for businesses to own servers and data centers. Since Google already has a massive global network—made up of things like our own data centers and undersea cables—we can provide that infrastructure to businesses so they can build products and services. In a nutshell, that’s what Google Cloud is—access to Google’s global infrastructure and all the state-of-the-art tools we’ve created over time to serve Google’s billions of users.

This new way of building in the cloud has resulted in changes to the way that companies use computers and other technology.

Why is the cloud such a big deal?

The cloud took the tech world by storm, and it keeps growing for consumer and business uses. Companies want to use the newest, fastest technology, which isn’t possible when you’re only buying new computers every few years.

Public cloud providers allow companies to use the newest technology without having to buy and maintain it themselves. Google Cloud, for example, maintains complicated networks that can quickly move data around the world. Keeping information secure, a challenge for businesses, is also easier with the cloud, since encryption is built in. Plus, the huge scale of cloud means it can run apps faster.

Cloud companies can also be more efficient with space and power. At Google, we buy enough wind and solar to offset the electricity we use, so our customers can get sustainability benefits they might not get on their own.
Cooling towers at a data center in Belgium.png

Cooling towers at a data center in Belgium

How does cloud affect your everyday life?

When businesses started using the cloud, their customers started using the cloud, too. It makes lots of what we do on our phones, tablets, and laptops possible. For example, Gmail became popular pretty quickly, because it offered a lot more storage so you could keep all your emails—even ones with large attachments. Gmail works because instead of storing emails on one limited server somewhere, a giant network of servers stores those emails. When you check your email, a server in one of those data centers is finding and downloading your newest emails and routing them to your computer or phone. Plus, because Gmail is cloud-based, this opens up opportunities for machine learning to help you in ways you might not notice, like blocking phishing and spam attempts to your inbox.  

What do people talk about at a cloud conference?

When 30,000 or so people converge in San Francisco at Google Cloud Next ’19 this week, they’ll be choosing from hundreds of sessions, panels, and tutorials to learn about cloud computing. Some attendees may be just getting started with the cloud and need to learn the basics, while others are exploring advanced concepts like AI and machine learning. Lots of the sessions explain how Google Cloud-specific products can be used. There are sessions on connecting products from outside of Google Cloud into ours and showing business users how to move their data into the cloud.

That’s your start to understanding cloud. If you want to learn more, tune in to our Next livestream all week.

Source: Gmail Blog


Master your email with these essential Gmail tips

Your email can feel like a never-ending to-do list. And in a world where technology makes you more connected to work than ever before, how do you set ground rules to keep your energy up, your focus sharp and your sanity intact? As a productivity expert at Google, I help Googlers use products like Gmail, Google Drive and Google Calendar to get more done during their busy days. Email in particular can be a source of stress, but it doesn’t have to be. 

Gmail had its birthday earlier this week, and for 15 years, it’s been a helpful sidekick for billions of people around the globe. Part of my job is sharing Gmail-related tips with fellow Googlers—here are my top 10 email management tips for you:


  1. Cut down on notifications: Don’t bother your brain with notifications for every new email—proactively check your email instead. On your phone, you can set up notifications for certain emails—say, the ones from your boss. This will help you identify important emails and disconnect when you want to.
  2. Respond within 24 hours, even if it’s only to check in:You probably can’t get to all emails within 24 hours, but you can avoid getting another follow up email from a coworker. Giving a status update—“Hi, I got this email but not going to get to it until later this week!”—is a great way to set expectations and show them you’re on it.
  3. Close out your email 1-2 times a day: Email is necessary to get your job done, but it’s also the ultimate distraction. Most people leave it open all day and check it every 30 minutes (if not more). Try closing your email tab when you have time to do deep work: the ability to focus without distraction on a demanding task.
  4. Don’t click on an email more than twice: If you read an email then mark it as unread, you’ll have to read it again to remember what to do with it. Read it once to scan and tag your future action (for example, labeling it as “must respond,” or “to do this week,”) then one more time when you answer it.
  5. Sorting, reading and answering emails should be separate activities:Most people bounce between sorting one email for later, reading one, answering one and repeating. We lose so much energy switching between these activities. Instead, tell yourself “right now I’m sorting everything.” Then when you’re done, read everything you need to read.
  6. Keep emails that require clear action—otherwise archive or delete:When your inbox contains emails without clear action items, it gives your brain the false sense of having too much to do. Be ruthless about deleting, archiving, or snoozing emails that don’t require an immediate action from you in some way.
  7. Skip some emails: Every email you see takes a tiny piece of your energy, so each item in your inbox should be something you need to look at. Gmail lets you create filters so that certain emails “skip your inbox” and won’t appear as new emails. For example, if you get a lot of email newsletters, set up a filter with “Has the words:unsubscribe”—now, those emails won’t distract you, but you can search for them later.
  8. Don’t mix your read and unread emails:Combining read and unread emails in your inbox is a recipe for anxiety. New emails should come into one section and emails that you’ve already read and require an action should be in a different section. You can create a Multiple Inbox pane or “move” emails to different label that denotes a specific action (such as “To Do” or “Follow Up”).
  9. To stay focused, keep new email out of sight. It can be hard to answer pressing emails when  you’re constantly tempted to open the bright and shiny new emails that just came in. Open up a section like your “Snoozed emails” (emails that you’ve saved for later) or your “Starred emails” (your high-priority emails) so you can stay focused on those tasks, instead of getting distracted by new email.
  10. To find what you need, just search: Email labels can help you stay organized, but think about how Google got its start … Search! Searching your email—instead of digging through labels—is actually a faster way to find the email you’re looking for. You can search by date, sender, subject (and more) and you can get even more specific with queries like “has:attachment” or “older_than:6m” (m=months).

For those of you new to using G Suite, there are loads of ways to stay productive in email. Learn more or try it out for yourself. Now go forth, and tackle that email.  


Master your email with these essential Gmail tips

Your email can feel like a never-ending to-do list. And in a world where technology makes you more connected to work than ever before, how do you set ground rules to keep your energy up, your focus sharp and your sanity intact? As a productivity expert at Google, I help Googlers use products like Gmail, Google Drive and Google Calendar to get more done during their busy days. Email in particular can be a source of stress, but it doesn’t have to be. 

Gmail had its birthday earlier this week, and for 15 years, it’s been a helpful sidekick for billions of people around the globe. Part of my job is sharing Gmail-related tips with fellow Googlers—here are my top 10 email management tips for you:


  1. Cut down on notifications: Don’t bother your brain with notifications for every new email—proactively check your email instead. On your phone, you can set up notifications for certain emails—say, the ones from your boss. This will help you identify important emails and disconnect when you want to.
  2. Respond within 24 hours, even if it’s only to check in:You probably can’t get to all emails within 24 hours, but you can avoid getting another follow up email from a coworker. Giving a status update—“Hi, I got this email but not going to get to it until later this week!”—is a great way to set expectations and show them you’re on it.
  3. Close out your email 1-2 times a day: Email is necessary to get your job done, but it’s also the ultimate distraction. Most people leave it open all day and check it every 30 minutes (if not more). Try closing your email tab when you have time to do deep work: the ability to focus without distraction on a demanding task.
  4. Don’t click on an email more than twice: If you read an email then mark it as unread, you’ll have to read it again to remember what to do with it. Read it once to scan and tag your future action (for example, labeling it as “must respond,” or “to do this week,”) then one more time when you answer it.
  5. Sorting, reading and answering emails should be separate activities:Most people bounce between sorting one email for later, reading one, answering one and repeating. We lose so much energy switching between these activities. Instead, tell yourself “right now I’m sorting everything.” Then when you’re done, read everything you need to read.
  6. Keep emails that require clear action—otherwise archive or delete:When your inbox contains emails without clear action items, it gives your brain the false sense of having too much to do. Be ruthless about deleting, archiving, or snoozing emails that don’t require an immediate action from you in some way.
  7. Skip some emails: Every email you see takes a tiny piece of your energy, so each item in your inbox should be something you need to look at. Gmail lets you create filters so that certain emails “skip your inbox” and won’t appear as new emails. For example, if you get a lot of email newsletters, set up a filter with “Has the words:unsubscribe”—now, those emails won’t distract you, but you can search for them later.
  8. Don’t mix your read and unread emails:Combining read and unread emails in your inbox is a recipe for anxiety. New emails should come into one section and emails that you’ve already read and require an action should be in a different section. You can create a Multiple Inbox pane or “move” emails to different label that denotes a specific action (such as “To Do” or “Follow Up”).
  9. To stay focused, keep new email out of sight. It can be hard to answer pressing emails when  you’re constantly tempted to open the bright and shiny new emails that just came in. Open up a section like your “Snoozed emails” (emails that you’ve saved for later) or your “Starred emails” (your high-priority emails) so you can stay focused on those tasks, instead of getting distracted by new email.
  10. To find what you need, just search: Email labels can help you stay organized, but think about how Google got its start … Search! Searching your email—instead of digging through labels—is actually a faster way to find the email you’re looking for. You can search by date, sender, subject (and more) and you can get even more specific with queries like “has:attachment” or “older_than:6m” (m=months).

For those of you new to using G Suite, there are loads of ways to stay productive in email. Learn more or try it out for yourself. Now go forth, and tackle that email.  


Source: Gmail Blog


Master your email with these essential Gmail tips

Your email can feel like a never-ending to-do list. And in a world where technology makes you more connected to work than ever before, how do you set ground rules to keep your energy up, your focus sharp and your sanity intact? As a productivity expert at Google, I help Googlers use products like Gmail, Google Drive and Google Calendar to get more done during their busy days. Email in particular can be a source of stress, but it doesn’t have to be. 

Gmail had its birthday earlier this week, and for 15 years, it’s been a helpful sidekick for billions of people around the globe. Part of my job is sharing Gmail-related tips with fellow Googlers—here are my top 10 email management tips for you:


  1. Cut down on notifications: Don’t bother your brain with notifications for every new email—proactively check your email instead. On your phone, you can set up notifications for certain emails—say, the ones from your boss. This will help you identify important emails and disconnect when you want to.
  2. Respond within 24 hours, even if it’s only to check in:You probably can’t get to all emails within 24 hours, but you can avoid getting another follow up email from a coworker. Giving a status update—“Hi, I got this email but not going to get to it until later this week!”—is a great way to set expectations and show them you’re on it.
  3. Close out your email 1-2 times a day: Email is necessary to get your job done, but it’s also the ultimate distraction. Most people leave it open all day and check it every 30 minutes (if not more). Try closing your email tab when you have time to do deep work: the ability to focus without distraction on a demanding task.
  4. Don’t click on an email more than twice: If you read an email then mark it as unread, you’ll have to read it again to remember what to do with it. Read it once to scan and tag your future action (for example, labeling it as “must respond,” or “to do this week,”) then one more time when you answer it.
  5. Sorting, reading and answering emails should be separate activities:Most people bounce between sorting one email for later, reading one, answering one and repeating. We lose so much energy switching between these activities. Instead, tell yourself “right now I’m sorting everything.” Then when you’re done, read everything you need to read.
  6. Keep emails that require clear action—otherwise archive or delete:When your inbox contains emails without clear action items, it gives your brain the false sense of having too much to do. Be ruthless about deleting, archiving, or snoozing emails that don’t require an immediate action from you in some way.
  7. Skip some emails: Every email you see takes a tiny piece of your energy, so each item in your inbox should be something you need to look at. Gmail lets you create filters so that certain emails “skip your inbox” and won’t appear as new emails. For example, if you get a lot of email newsletters, set up a filter with “Has the words:unsubscribe”—now, those emails won’t distract you, but you can search for them later.
  8. Don’t mix your read and unread emails:Combining read and unread emails in your inbox is a recipe for anxiety. New emails should come into one section and emails that you’ve already read and require an action should be in a different section. You can create a Multiple Inbox pane or “move” emails to different label that denotes a specific action (such as “To Do” or “Follow Up”).
  9. To stay focused, keep new email out of sight. It can be hard to answer pressing emails when  you’re constantly tempted to open the bright and shiny new emails that just came in. Open up a section like your “Snoozed emails” (emails that you’ve saved for later) or your “Starred emails” (your high-priority emails) so you can stay focused on those tasks, instead of getting distracted by new email.
  10. To find what you need, just search: Email labels can help you stay organized, but think about how Google got its start … Search! Searching your email—instead of digging through labels—is actually a faster way to find the email you’re looking for. You can search by date, sender, subject (and more) and you can get even more specific with queries like “has:attachment” or “older_than:6m” (m=months).

For those of you new to using G Suite, there are loads of ways to stay productive in email. Learn more or try it out for yourself. Now go forth, and tackle that email.  


Source: Gmail Blog