The Best Free Gmail Inbox Tools to Get ‘Er Done

At StringCan we’re Google product users (minus our trusty iPhones), and we love tools, tips, and tricks to be more effective, efficient, and productive. We are Gmail users and we’ve compiled quite a few Gmail inbox tools to share with you to help you keep more of your precious time.

Gmail Inbox Tools

‍

Schedule Send

‍

Get out your pen and prepare to check off some to-dos. Often we end up creating a list of emails to send at a later time. And that list? It gets lost, deleted, or just plain ole forgotten. Gmail now gives you the option to schedule email messages right from the composition window! How to: When composing a new message, click on the dropdown next to the blue Send button, select your date/time, and click “Schedule Send.” Send it and forget it.  

‍

‍

Make Emails into Templates

‍

Do you send a lot of the same messages? Reminding staff to do time entry, finding receipts, asking about sales updates, did you do your homework, etc. When composing a new email that you want to save as a template, click the arrow in the top right of the window to expand the screen. Click the three dots in the lower right to open the options menu (the hamburger menu).‍

‍

How to: Click on Templates, Save draft as template, Save as new template. Name your template, and you’re ready to rock. Next time, open the expanded view, click the hamburger menu to open the menu, select templates, and insert your template.

‍

‍

Use Smart Reply

‍

Do you find that you usually say a lot of the same things in your emails? You always end in “Let me know what you think,” or “Hope you had a great day.” Gmail has a super smart way to help eliminate those pesky seconds you spend typing using their version of auto-complete. Over time your habits and preferences will provide even better feedback. How to: Turn on Smart Reply by going to your Settings, click General, then turn Smart Reply on. As you type, a lighter gray text will appear in front of your cursor. If you like it, then click Tab add it.

‍

‍

‍

Undo, Undo, Undo!

‍

Your Smart Reply feature is still learning and you’ve had too much espresso from the company Nespresso machine. You hit Send too soon. Gulp. Never fear, there’s a Gmail feature called Undo Send for just this reason.How to: Turn on Undo Send and select how much time you have after hitting send (and navigating away from the message) to recall the message. Go to your Settings, General, turn on Undo Send. 30 seconds is the max, and we highly recommend it. To use, at the bottom left you'll see a Message Sent box with "Undo" in blue.

‍

Confidential Messages

‍

Sending sensitive information (or homemade memes) just got more secure. You can choose to not allow an email to be forwarded, copied, pasted, printed, or downloaded by the recipient(s). How to: At the bottom of the compose screen there’s a lock and clock icon. You can set the expiration (self-destruct) and/or require an SMS passcode. Note: Some accounts and admins may not allow this or will be able to see the meme… we mean message.

‍

‍

‍

Essential Extensions:

‍

Boomerang, Pause and Naughty or Nice

‍

Boomerang (for Gmail and Outlook) is amazing, simply put. It allows you to ‘boomerang’ messages back to your inbox when you want, schedule messages to be sent, and most impressively, PAUSE your inbox.

‍

Pause: Sometimes we can’t help it, we use our email to distract us from tasks we’re working on, to store to-dos, or in general poke around until something ‘important’ comes in. Be the boss of your inbox and (gasp) put it on pause.

‍

Naughty or Nice: Ever wonder how the tone of your messages sound? Are your messages too wordy? Boomerang’s Respondable tool tells you how likely your message is to get a response. Also, how polite, positive, and subjective your message is.

‍

‍How to: Check out Boomerang here and the free and paid plans here.

‍

With all this free time you can reach out to us for a chat about your marketing needs!  Drop us a line!