Ok, what do you normally do? Make a mail account, and start mailing! Have you ever thought about improving what your doing? Have you ever thought of new features? Well… if you haven’t, think now….

Actually most people won’t notice this, because even i found it after using GMail for a long time! Actually GMail have lots of features under the hood… like : YouTube previews in mail, Flickr previews in mail, Message translation, Mouse gestures, Sender Time Zone, and many more!

So what are we waiting for… lets see how to enable these feature!

1. Look at the top right corner of your Gmail inbox, there should be a link called settings, click on it
2. After that, in the settings page go to click on the “Labs” tab
3. There you’ll see the list of features which are available for you, just enable the features you want!

Features available to you :

• Offline

Make Gmail go where the Internet doesn’t. Access your inbox through your browser and use Gmail’s familiar features when you’re offline. To get started, enable this lab and then click on the “Offline” link in the upper-right of your inbox.

• YouTube previews in mail

Shows a video preview whenever you receive a YouTube link in an email. You can watch the video right inline!

• Picasa previews in mail

Shows photos previews whenever you receive a Picasa link in an email.

• Flickr previews in mail

Shows photos previews whenever you receive a Flickr link in an email.

• Yelp previews in mail

Shows previews of Yelp listings (rating, location, phone number, etc.) whenever you receive a Yelp link in an email.

• Google Voice player in mail

Lets you play voicemails left on your Google Voice account right from the email notification.

• Google Docs previews in mail

Shows previews of documents, spreadsheets and presentations directly in the email when you receive any link to a Google Doc. Also gives an option to open directly in Google Docs.

• Message translation

Uses Google Translate to translate messages you receive in other languages.

• Back to Beta

Soothes the soul by putting the familiar beta sticker back on the Gmail logo.

• Quick Links

Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more.

• Superstars

Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature:

(1) Go to the “General” Settings page to choose which superstars you wish to use.

(2) Use either the keyboard shortcut (’s’) or click to rotate through your selected superstars.

(3) Use the search operator “has:” to find all messages with your superstar (e.g. “has:red-bang”, “has:blue-star”). Learn the name of a superstar by hovering over its image in the “General” Settings page.

• Pictures in chat

See your friends’ profile pictures when you chat with them.

• Fixed width font

Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font.

• Custom keyboard shortcuts

Lets you customize keyboard shortcut mappings. Adds a new Settings tab from which you can remap keys to various actions.

• Mouse gestures

Use your mouse to navigate with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows.

• Signature tweaks

Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the “–” line that appears before signatures.

• Random Signature

Rotates among random quotations for your email signature.

• Sender Time Zone

Should I reply to this mail or just call the guy? Ooops… it’s 1 am. Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb…

• Custom date formats

Adds options to the general settings page allowing the date and time format to be changed independent of language. For example, you can use a 24-hour clock (14:57) or show dates with the day first (31/12/07).

• Muzzle

Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends’ status messages.

• Old Snakey

Kick it old school with Old Snakey! Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit ‘&’ from the main page to play a game of snake.

• Email Addict

Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat.

• Right-side chat

Move the chat box to the right side of the inbox.

• Hide Unread Counts

Hides the unread counts for inbox, labels, etc.

• Advanced IMAP Controls

Choose which labels show up in IMAP, turn off message auto-expunging, or trash messages when they’re deleted from IMAP.

• Canned Responses

Email for the truly lazy. Save and then send your common messages using a button next to the compose form. Also automatically send emails using filters.

• Default ‘Reply to all’

Make ‘Reply to all’ your default option for responding to emails.

• Quote selected text

Quote the text you have selected when you reply to a message. (Now works with the mouse, too!)

• Navbar drag and drop

Allows you to reorder the items in your navbar using drag and drop.

• Mail Goggles

Google strives to make the world’s information useful. Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems and you’re good to go. Otherwise, get a good night’s sleep and try again in the morning. After enabling this feature, you can adjust the schedule in the “General” settings page.

• Forgotten Attachment Detector

Prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments. Prompts you if you mention attaching a file, but forgot to do so.

• Vacation Time!

Lets you specify starting and ending dates for the vacation auto-responder.

Ok, that’s enough for a start…. don’t worry there are more features (its a long list). But as they always say, be careful! Always keep in mind that in case if you were unable to login after enabling these features, you can use http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0 to get you out of trouble!

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