When it comes to email services no one does it better than Gmail. Be it the 15GB of free storage that expands through Google Drive, or the fantastic spam detection algorithms, Gmail makes email management effortless.
With over 1.5 billion active accounts worldwide, Gmail does a lot of things right. Its increasing popularity is often attributed to the features Google keeps offering with its email services.
You might be a Gmail maestro, but it’s possible you might’ve overlooked a couple of features. So to make your Gmail experience more rewarding, here are six features you might have missed while using Gmail, which will surely increase your productivity.
Also read: Gmail vs Gmail Go: What’s the difference?
Increase undo duration
The ‘undo’ feature on Gmail is a god sent. Most people tend to send emails without contemplating their emotions which leads to catastrophic results. Gmail came up with an undo send feature in 2015, which lets users undo sent emails with a click of a button. By default, this feature is available for a 5-second window, but sometimes realisation takes more than 5 seconds to hit. You can increase the undo duration to upto 30 seconds.
To do the same open Gmail on your web browser and follow the steps below.
Step 1: Click on the gear icon on the top right corner and then click on Settings.

Step 2: Under General look for Undo send and change the time to 30 seconds.

Step 3: Scroll down and click on Save changes.

Also read: What is Browser Compartmentalisation? How does it enhance user privacy?
Use multiple stars for different priority tasks
Gmails does wonders when it comes to marking conversations as important. Marking one email as important makes it mark all similar emails as important in the future. This prevents users from missing emails from someone important.
But with the enormous amounts of email one gets every day, managing emails has become really difficult. So to prioritise your emails you can use stars of different colours which will help you manage your email better.
Step 1: Click on the gear icon on the top right corner and then click on Settings from the dropdown menu.

Step 2: Under General look for stars and select 4 stars or all stars according to your needs. You can create custom configurations apart from the given presets by dragging stars from Not in use to In use

Step 3: Once you’re done, scroll down and click on Save changes

Also read: How to add your signature to Gmail?
Use Gmail offline
Gmail can be used even without an active internet connection. To do this, it loads a cached copy of your emails Enabling this feature might increase the time it takes for Gmail to open on your device as it saves all the emails locally first.
You can send emails in the offline mode, but the mails will be sent once you have an active internet connection. This feature can be a lifesaver when you have a flight to catch and have tons of email to go through.
You can configure the sync settings and security features according to your need under the same. To access the cached copy of your email when you are not connected to the internet, you can go to mail.gmail.com or bookmark your Gmail account as well.
To enable Gmail offline follow the steps given below
Step 1: Click on the gear icon on the top right corner and then click on Settings from the dropdown menu

Step 2: Click on Offline under settings and click on the checkbox beside Enable offline mail

Step 3: Scroll down and click on Save changes

Also read: How to block emails on Gmail?
Auto forward message to people
If you find yourself forwarding messages to a subordinate or your supervisor the auto-forward feature will automate this task for you. You can create a filter to forward only particular messages and leave out the rest.
The email address you add as your forwarding contact will be sent a verification code. Once verified Gmail will send all emails you receive to the forwarding address.
To use this feature follow the steps mentioned below.
Step 1: Click on the gear icon on the top right corner and then click on Settings from the dropdown menu.

Step 2: Click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP under settings and click on Add a forwarding address

Step 3: Enter the forwarding address in the pop-up box and click on Next

Step 4: A new window will open click on Proceed to send a verification code to the given forwarding address.

Step 5: Enter the verification code and click on Verify.

Step 6: Once verified you can send the email you receive to the given forwarding address by clicking on the radio button next to Forward a copy of incoming mail to

Step 7: Scroll down and click on Save changes

Also read: How to create a group email in Gmail?
Custom keyboard shortcuts
If you have been using Gmail for a long time you might be familiar with the shortcuts it offers but you can configure these shortcuts according to your needs. To create custom shortcuts for Gmail follow the steps below.
Step 1: Click on the gear icon on the top right corner and then click on Settings from the dropdown menu.

Step 2: Click on Advaced under settings and click on Enable next to Custom keyboard shortcuts

Step 3: Scroll down and click on Save changes

Once you have saved these changes Gmail will reload.
Step 4: Open Settings by clicking on the gear icon

Step 5: Click on Keyboard shortcuts under Settings and change the shortcuts according to your needs.

Step 6: Scroll down and click on Save changes

Also read: How to create folders in Gmail?
Enable notifications for important messages on desktop
Getting notified when an important email reaches your account is critical. So to enable notifications on your desktop for important messages follow the steps below.
Step 1: Click on the gear icon on the top right corner and then click on Settings

Step 2: Under General look for Desktop notifications and select Important mail notifications on.

Step 3: Scroll down and click on Save changes

Also read: How to sync Android contacts with Gmail account?
Is Gmail Free?
Google made 134 billion dollars in revenue from advertisements in 2019. This revenue is used to run free services like Gmail. and is often procured by selling personal information for targetted ads. Even though Google says that it does not read your emails for targetted ads it allows third-party apps to access your Email. This goes to show that using Gmail can put your privacy at risk.
One has to understand that in the age of internet, free services come at a price of letting go off our data privacy as companies make money by selling our data. But is selling your data for services worth the risk?