Scribbles for Gmail for mobile - a creative way to email

From prehistoric humans etching in caves to the modern-day thinker sketching a stroke of genius on a napkin, scribbling is a natural form of human expression. Not constrained by formatting or font styles, scribbling is a versatile outlet for expressing individuality and creativity. Not to mention it's a lot of fun.

Now you can quickly convey that eureka moment to a colleague, or simply brighten a loved one's day with a personal scribble in Gmail for the mobile web browser and the Gmail app for iOS. In the compose view, click on the scribble button to open up the drawing window. A lightweight interface makes it easy to get your idea down.

Need a bit of inspiration to get started? With the holidays just around the corner, it's a great time to send a handmade, festive greeting:



Or, perhaps your wit is better-expressed pictorially than textually. Use scribbles to send original comics to your friends, or generate a new meme:



Simple requests are that much more appealing from someone who puts in a bit of effort:


It’s also great for simply emoting beyond the limitations of plain text:


At the end of the day, it's a blank canvas. What do you want to share? To get started, head to mail.google.com on your iOS 4+, Android 3.1+ or Playbook device, or download the Gmail app for iOS from the App Store today.

We want to see what you can do! Send your scribbles to gmailscribbles@google.com and then share them with the world using #GmailScribbles.*

Brought to you by the Gmail team. Happy Holidays!


*By emailing your scribble to gmailscribbles@google.com, you give us your permission to upload, share or reproduce your scribble both digitally and physically. Unfortunately, we will not be able to showcase all submitted scribbles, and will have to pick and choose amongst the ones that we receive. Remember: have fun and be cool about it - nothing offensive and nothing that violates the law. Thanks!

Ho-ho-hold the phone: Santa’s on the line

Last year, Santa got his very own Google Voice number, and people around the U.S. received a special personalized holiday phone call from Santa Claus.

This year, Santa wants you to reach out to him (after all, reindeer are only so-so conversationalists). If you or your family members have a special request for Santa, you can call him right from Gmail* and leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Santa won't be able to return messages himself—it’s a busy time of year for him—but he's promised to keep us up to date on happenings in the North Pole day by day.

You also can create and send a unique, customized phone call from Santa to anyone you know, from your nieces and nephews to old college friends, over the phone (to U.S. numbers only). Listen to a sample phone call, and send a message of your own from SendaCallFromSanta.com.

Of course, Santa is never one to fall behind the technological times (word on the street is that Rudolph’s nose was recently upgraded to an energy-efficient LED). So while the red suit may never go out of style, this year Santa has come up with an extra special way to spread the holiday cheer. But you’ll have to wait until it’s closer to Christmas to find out what it is. So no peeking—but keep checking the site!

Happy Holidays from your friends at Gmail.

*Calls from Gmail are free for U.S. and Canadian users, but will cost people outside those areas $.01/minute (plus any applicable VATs).

Updates to the Gmail app for iOS

When we launched the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, we said we were just getting started and would continue to release updates regularly. Today we updated the app with some new features and interface improvements.

We've added the ability to set a custom signature for your mobile messages and a vacation responder, both available through the gear icon at the top of the menu view. We've also improved labels with support for nested labels:



Additionally, if you are using iOS 5, we've changed the notification sound so that it’s easier to distinguish when you've received an email.

We’ve also got another fun feature to make your language even more colorful (in a good way!). In the Gmail app and Gmail for mobile you can now open up a canvas and scribble a message that will be attached to your email. It's perfect for sending a quick sketch that is hard to express in words or adding a fun graphic to make your email more personal.

Scribbles support different colors, brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paint. This example was created in the Gmail app on an iPad:


Behind the scenes, we're continuing to work on highly requested features like banner notifications, multiple login support and the ability to send-as from any account already configured in Gmail. We want to make sure these are done right as we continue to improve the Gmail app.

Free calling within the US and Canada through 2012

As the holiday season approaches, we're happy to announce that we've extended free domestic calls within the US and Canada for 2012.

This is our way of helping you connect with friends and family across the country. And you can still call the rest of the world from Gmail at our insanely low rates.

Gmail and Contacts get better with Google+

We want to bring you a great experience across all Google products which, for Gmail and Contacts, means understanding what you care about and delivering it instantly. With that in mind, we’re introducing some new integrations with Google+ that we think will make Gmail and Contacts even better. If you use Google+, you can now grow your circles, filter emails and contacts by circles, keep all your contact information up-to-date automatically and share photos to Google+, all right from Gmail and Contacts.

Grow your circles from your email
Now when you open an email from someone on Google+, you can see the most recent post they’ve shared with you on the right-hand side of the conversation. If they’re not in your circles yet, it’s easy to add them straight from Gmail.



Find information from the people you care about most
Looking for the info on an upcoming family holiday gathering but can't remember who sent it? If you've spent time building your Google+ circles, you can now quickly use them to filter your mail, saving yourself from having to sift through that pile of daily deal emails and newsletters. You can see messages from all of your circles at once or from each individual circle. And if you want, you can show circle names on emails in your inbox. Contacts can also be filtered by circles, making it easier to view your social connections.


Keep your contact information up-to-date automatically
Manually entering contact information can be a huge time drain—so let your circles do it for you. If your contacts have a Google profile, their contact entry in Gmail will be updated with the profile information they’ve shared with you, including phone numbers, email addresses and more. If they change it in the future, you’ll get those updates automatically. You can also make sure the people you care about have your most up-to-date contact information by updating your own Google profile and sharing it.


Share effortlessly without leaving your inbox
Lots of great images are sent through email, but sharing those photos with friends on Google+ used to require downloading the image from Gmail and re-uploading to your profile. Not anymore: Now you can share photo attachments with one quick click. The image(s) will be uploaded to your Google+ photos and be viewable only to the circles that you choose to share with.


We’ll be rolling out all of these changes out over the next few days to Gmail, Gmail Contacts and the “standalone” version of Google Contacts at contacts.google.com. Please note that Google Apps users won’t see the Contacts updates quite yet, but we’re actively working to make them available.

All of these features (and the more to come) are the result of the great discussion that we had on Google+ with users in July. If you want to join in discussions like these, add the Gmail Google+ page to your circles. And if you haven't signed up for Google+ and would like to try these new features, visit this page to get started.

Testing Gmail’s new look

Editor's note: This post, like yesterday's, is more technical than most posts here, but we thought some of you might find it interesting to look inside how Gmail works.

Yesterday, we talked about how we make changes like the new look to Gmail. The new look is not just visual, but involves completely different code in the interface. Testing a large user interface (UI) change like we launched for Gmail is foremost a permutation problem. Because all the Gmail features we wrote while we developed the new UI had to work both there and in the old existing UI, we basically needed to double our testing. Plus, the new UI has to work in many browsers, in all languages Gmail is available in, which means even more testing -- and by testing, we mean functional testing, latency testing, usability testing... you get the idea! The only way to handle all of these moving parts is through a) test automation, and b) using the new look.

We use automated tests as much as possible: we test if code changes lead to functional regressions, how they affect speed and our servers, if the UI breaks in many browsers and more. The scalable build and test infrastructure at Google allows us to run these tests automatically after every single(!) code change. However, a major UI change like this requires that our automated tests are very stable. If a test relies too much on the structure of the UI, then the test starts failing - not because the functionality is broken, but because it fails to work with the new UI. Luckily, we learned this lesson many years back and most of our tests did not have this problem.

But even the best automated tests can’t guarantee that everything is working well and that the visuals are pleasing. The only way to find out is to actually use the new look. For Gmail, we have special environment that gets updated every night with the latest stable code. Almost all Gmail engineers and a handful of other Googlers are using this environment for their real Gmail usage. But it turned out even daily updates were too slow for the rate of code change with the new look. So, we created an environment that updates every hour with the latest stable code. This version of Gmail was used by all engineers who worked on the redesign. It allowed us to test code changes very quickly on the real system. We were able to find many functional and usability issues here. And because we used this system and no engineer likes their email to be broken, issues were fixed very quickly. We can only do this because we have a very good coverage by our automated tests. When all these tests pass, we can be sure that most of the Gmail functionality is working. However, there could still be usability, color, layout or other challenges that tests can't catch.

Gmail’s new look also put a lot of additional load on our testing team. They had to keep up with a high rate of change, test critical functionality quickly and triage a lot of reported issues. Plus, they had to test new features in both the old publicly-available UI as well as the new unlaunched UI. The dedication of our testing team helped us catch bugs early so we could fix them in preparation for launch.

Once we felt that the new look was good enough to be used by others, we turned it on for all Googlers. At Google, we "eat our own dogfood," meaning we use new products and features ourselves before releasing them to the public. Often, this is a very humbling experience. The shiny, new features, that we just developed and are so proud of are now used by people, including sales teams, managers and other non-engineers, who just want to get their job done. And believe me, Googlers are not shy when it comes to feedback! But for a project like this one, this step is absolutely critical. Our different teams at Google tested Gmail in all kinds of use cases and the feedback that we received from this phase was invaluable. It helped us to put the final touches on the new look and get ready for usability tests that were previously discussed.

We hope you've enjoyed a look into the Gmail's design, development and testing of the new look.

Developing Gmail’s new look

Editor's note: This post is more technical than most posts here, but we thought some of you might find it interesting to look inside how development on the Gmail team works.

Developing the new look for Gmail was like the proverbial “changing tires on a moving car” - only that the car is carrying hundreds of millions of users and is under constant construction and development. The two main technologies that we use for these types of projects in Gmail are “conditional features” and “Javascript mods” (other Google products use very similar systems). Both technologies were particularly important for testing the new look.

Let’s start with the first one: conditional features. This is our ability to make changes to the Gmail code that get deployed, but not executed. You can think of it as a lot of if-statements around the new code that get enabled when the conditional feature is on. The conditional feature flag itself is set outside of the deployed code. These flags can be set in various ways: as a percentage of overall users (if we want to rollout a feature slowly), for Googlers only (if we want to use a new feature internally), for individuals (if we want to give users early access to a features) and in many other ways. In short, conditional features allow us to update our production systems separately from releasing new features. This way, Gmail developers can make changes, but don’t have to worry about their unfinished changes being released before they are ready.

The other technology is “Javascript mods”. We use this technology to create modifications for a new feature in Javascript across many files. The main challenge with Javascript is that we want to keep the amount of Javascript code that the browser has to download as small as possible - the more code the browser has to download, the longer it takes to load Gmail. So, we don’t want to include the code from all possible mods, but only the code that’s relevant to your browser. Let’s use our Gmail mobile app as an example: it comes in various forms, including the smartphone user interface (UI), the tablet UI, and the offline UI. All these UIs are slightly different. We don’t want to download the Javascript code for all different UIs to the browser. Instead, our server inspects which browser or device you are using and creates the exact Javascript that you need. The selection of mods can be triggered by browsers, devices and even “conditional features”.

Using these technologies, we can make sweeping changes in Gmail without those changes going “live” before they are ready. Plus, since we can turn pieces of code on or off, we can enable new features in specific environments, such as Google, or for specific users, like the Gmail team, without changing the code itself.

Designing Gmail’s new left navigation

One of our goals for Gmail's new look was to make Gmail feel more like a native application with independently scrolling panels rather than a website that scrolls as a single page. This design approach brings with it many advantages: the search box and primary navigation are always in the same place, your inbox unread count is always visible, etc. As with any design decision there were challenges with making this change. People with lots of labels might have their chat contacts pushed entirely off the screen and those with gadgets, like the Google Docs or Calendar gadgets, might have to scroll the left panel past both the labels and the chat contacts in order to see them.

We went through a number of different design revisions to try and address these issues as elegantly as possible. We experimented with several accordion designs, which stack sections on top of each other but only allow one or two to be open at a time.



We also experimented with designs that involved only one scrolling region, but showed fewer entries per section.


The final design combines aspects of both approaches. It is a ducking accordion design with only two sections. The bottom section has two tabs, one for chat and one for gadgets, with room to add more tabs in the future. The upper section, which contains labels, expands to show all of the visible labels when you mouse over it. This allows you to see chat contacts but still give quick access to the labels. Best of all, you can easily adjust the balance between labels and chat to fit your own personal preference by dragging the divider between the sections up and down.


This design went through a number of iterations as well. We carefully adjusted the timing and triggering behavior of the expanding labels section to minimize accidental triggering. We noticed in usability testing that having the labels section expand when you are mousing over the Inbox label delete didn't work for everyone. We tweaked the system only to expand if you moved your mouse below the inbox label and keep it there for a moment. We also tried to ensure that if you are moving your mouse to click on a particular label or chat contact, that label or chat contact will never move out from under you.

The end result is a system that is more flexible, more responsive, and always keeps your chat contacts and unread count visible without adding a lot of complexity or requiring too much clicking around.

Hide morning and night hours in Calendar

How often do you have something scheduled at 3am? What about 10pm? If the answer is almost never, you might want to try out the Hide morning and night lab in Google Calendar.



With a simple drag of a slider you can fold all those empty hours into a single row to set the time range you want to hide. The folded rows still show all your events, just in more compact form.


We're launching this in Calendar Labs (Settings > Labs) to gather feedback on how people end up using this feature. So don’t forget to tell us what you think about this latest addition.

Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We’ve fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store. For an overview of what’s available in the Gmail app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, check out this blog post.

In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like improved notifications and mobile specific signatures.

We’re just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more. Based on your comments we have already improved our handling of image HTML messages - they are now sized to fit to the screen and you can pinch to zoom in.

To try out the Gmail app today, install it from App Store on any iOS 4+ device. Those who already have the Gmail app released Nov 2 must uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.

How real users helped us develop Gmail’s new look

When building Gmail’s new look, our goal was to make the most engaging, accessible, and most of all, easy to use email experience possible. To accomplish that, we had many real Gmail users try out changes to the look and provide feedback during its development.

One of the most important ways we obtained feedback was through usability studies. In these types of studies we observe people trying out our products in a controlled environment. We invited Gmail users from all walks of life to participate in usability studies and used the results to find problems and identify improvements before we launched.

For Gmail’s new look, we started very early. Long before any Googler began using or even building the new look, our designers created an early prototype. We then had Gmail users participate in a usability study either by coming to one of our offices or remotely connecting from their homes.

An example of one of our usability labs. People in usability studies use our products on the pictured computer while they are being observed through a one way mirror and video cameras from the room next door.

The study participants evaluated the early prototype by doing many of their everyday Gmail tasks, such as reading, sending, and replying to emails. We then looked at how easy or difficult it was to complete those tasks, and made changes based on this feedback. For example, one of the things we found with our prototype was that we had put too much emphasis on conversation level actions at the expense of per-message actions. As a result, our study participants had difficulty finding the reply button on each message. In response, we changed its appearance, size, and location to make the reply button easier to see.

As we continued to develop the new look, we evaluated our progress through additional usability studies with even more people. Much of what we captured from these studies was users’ first reactions to the new look. But Gmail is something people use repeatedly, not just once. So in addition to first impressions, we were also interested in seeing how people adjusted to the new look as they used it repeatedly in their daily lives. To find that out, we conducted a different kind of study called a longitudinal study. Longitudinal studies are used to observe the longer term effects our products have on people’s usage.

The longitudinal study consisted of turning on the new look for a group of Gmail users. We captured their initial reactions after their first experience. Then we let them use the new look in Gmail as they normally would as part of their everyday lives. As the days and weeks passed by, we periodically checked with them to see how they were adjusting to all the changes. Like with anything new, there were some changes that our participants initially needed time to adjust to, but later came to prefer as they used the new look more. On the other hand, problems that were not seen during the first couple times of use later emerged after more prolonged use. For example, many of the changes we made to the new left navigation were the result of people reporting their repeated experiences using labels and the chat area over time.

These studies have been absolutely critical in helping us build Gmail’s new look. Much of how it looks and behaves is a result of people participating in these studies and giving us their feedback. If you are interested in becoming a participant in a research study about Gmail or any of Google’s products, you can sign up at google.com/usability.

Improving themes in Gmail’s new look

One of the most visible improvements in last week’s Gmail update is the entirely new theme system and the new high definition themes that it supports. This refresh to themes both simplifies them and makes them more immersive. You can browse what some of the new themes look like below:


Themes are now implemented as semitransparent layers on top of a large background image. Each theme uses either a dark or light variant of most UI elements to balance legibility and visibility of the background image, allowing the background image to peek through and provide color and personality. Background imagery can also change based on date, time, or weather. Bringing all these changes together really makes the new themes shine:

Old	New

Old	New

In addition, these changes also reduce the technical complexity of the theme system, which will enable us to create more beautiful and unique themes in the future.

Like the new themes? You can switch to the new look today by clicking on Switch to the new look in the bottom-right of Gmail.

Changing information density in Gmail’s new look

When our design team looked at tackling a redesign across Google properties, responsive design was high on our list of priorities. Responsive design implies that a page or application should dynamically re-adjust itself based on the your environment. The specifics of the device that a user is using, and in particular the size of their browser window, should have an impact on the way the application presents itself. To put it simply, Gmail needs to look and feel great on a tiny netbook screen, on a high resolution 30” monitor, or anything in between.

You can try this out yourself if you are using Gmail’s new look. Open up Gmail and make your browser window much smaller. Everything should crunch down as you adjust to give you a better experience in a smaller window. No matter what size your browser window is, Gmail should look and feel great out of the box.

We also thought quite a bit about the density of the information on the screen in the new design. Gmail’s old design packs a huge amount of information into a small space. While this is perfect for some, many people appreciate a more airy design with more whitespace between lines and elements on the page. This is especially true on larger monitors.

We wanted Gmail to be more attractive and easier to read by default, so if you’re on a larger monitor you will see that the items in your inbox are spaced farther apart than they were in the old design. We believe that this results in a better overall experience, but it does take some getting used to. In our internal testing we found that most of us adjusted to the new spacing after about a week and found the old spacing cramped and uncomfortable when they looked back at the old design.

Others, however, found the original spacing to be ideal and wanted to see as much information as possible without scrolling, even on a large monitor. We added a density setting to the gear menu in the toolbar to make sure that everybody can find a setting that works for them: Comfortable, Cozy, or Compact.

Comfortable is the spacing that we recommend for most people. With your density set to Comfortable, the display adjusts fluidly based on screen size.



Compact is the densest setting and matches the line spacing that existing Gmail users are used to. With your density set to Compact the display will stay dense no matter what size your window is.


Cozy is somewhere in the middle. With your density set to Cozy the display will get a little denser when you make your window small but the changes aren’t as dramatic.

Mathletes among you may recognize that the density setting is really a ceiling function.

We think Gmail should be smart enough to always make itself look good on your screen, so we incorporated responsive design. We also think you should be able to see what happens when you change your settings, so we put the density settings in the gear menu right next to your inbox. When you make a change, you can immediately see what it looks like. Our density settings reflect our design philosophy that Gmail’s new look should be more responsive, personal, and beautiful.

You can switch to the new look today by clicking on Switch to the new look in the bottom-right of Gmail.

A new way to connect with Gmail and friends

Today, the Google+ team launched Pages, a new way for you to build relationships with the things you love. We’re looking forward to connecting with you on our new Gmail page on Google+.



When you add the Gmail page to your Google+ Circles, you'll see updates from our team, including launches, tips and tricks, and more. You'll be able to discuss those updates with other Gmail users in the comments on the posts. Mention +Gmail when you share your own tips -- if we see a really stellar tip, we might reshare it. We’re also planning to hold regular Hangouts, so you can shoot the breeze with Google community managers, engineers, product managers and designers.

In addition to Gmail news, we’ll feature some of your other favorite Google products, including Google Calendar, Google Voice, Google Chat and Google Tasks. Be sure to add the Gmail page to your Circles and let us know what you think.

Suggested times in Google Calendar

Creating an event is easy, but finding a time that works for everyone is sometimes tricky and time consuming. To make this easier and save you time, we’ve added a new 'Suggested times' feature to Google Calendar.

To get started, create a calendar event, add guests and click Suggested times. The resulting list will include upcoming times where all participants are available. For example if you want to create an hour long meeting with Kara, and she already has an hour long meeting at 3pm, then times like 2pm and 4pm will be suggested.



As part of our ongoing commitment to accessibility, the list can also be navigated using the arrow keys and is accessible with a screen reader.

For more information, please visit the help center.

Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

Update: 11/2/11: Earlier today we launched a new Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately, it contained a bug which broke notifications and caused users to see an error message when first opening the app. We’ve removed the app while we correct the problem, and we’re working to bring you a new version soon. Everyone who’s already installed the app can continue to use it.

Waiting. Walking. Watching TV. Working out. Winding down. Waking up. We check email pretty much everywhere these days. And when we do, we want easy access to our important messages so we can respond quickly and get back to life -- or slinging birds at thieving green pigs.

With that in mind, we’ve created a new Gmail app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. We’ve combined your favorite features from the Gmail mobile web app and iOS into one app so you can be more productive on the go. It’s designed to be fast, efficient and take full advantage of the touchscreen and notification capabilities of your device. And it’s one more reason to switch to Gmail.

Speed
We want to give you the information you need quickly, with minimal effort and distraction. So we’ve included some time-saving features:

• Get alerted to new messages with push notifications and sounds
  
• Find an email in seconds with search across your entire inbox
  
• Autocomplete email addresses from your Gmail contacts or select from your device’s address book
  
• Upload photos with a click using the new attachment button in compose view
  
• On iPad, navigate your inbox and read your mail simultaneously with split view
  

Upload photos	Reply, move, label and more

Efficiency
Our inboxes overflow with dozens and even hundreds of messages a day—and this can be even more challenging on a smaller screen. The new Gmail app helps organize your mail so you don’t have to go wading through your inbox to find that key message from your boss or loved one:

• Focus on your important messages first with Priority Inbox
  
• Quickly scan countless emails on the same subject with threaded conversations
  
• Organize your mail by archiving, labelling, starring, deleting and reporting spam
  

Threaded conversations on the iPad
Touch
We’ve also optimized the interface so you can perform common actions in Gmail with the lightest touch:

• Pull down your inbox to rapidly refresh if you’re eager for new mail
  
• Swipe right to view your labels without ever leaving your inbox
  
• Swiftly scroll through dozens of emails just by sliding your finger
  

Pull down to refresh	Swipe right to view labels

We hope the Gmail app makes checking email on the go a little easier. It is available in the App Store today and works on all devices running iOS 4+. For more information, check out our help center.

Gmail’s new look

Back in July we showed you a preview of Gmail's new look, and we’ve been working this summer to make even more updates and improvements. Today, we’re giving you an in-depth look at the new design. If you like what you see, over the next few days you’ll be able to switch to the new look by clicking on Switch to the new look in the bottom-right of Gmail.

Streamlined conversations
Conversation view has been completely redesigned to help you read through your email threads. You’ll now see profiles pictures for your contacts, so it’s easier to keep track of who said what. We also stripped out as much as possible so you can focus on communicating with your friends and colleagues.



Elastic density
We know that you use Gmail from a variety of screen sizes and devices, so now the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using. If you prefer a denser view all the time, you can change your density manually in the Settings menu.


New HD themes
Themes have been completely rebuilt to enable us to bring you a new set of beautiful high resolution themes with imagery provided by iStockphoto. We've updated most of the old favorites as well and your theme will be automatically carried over to the new look. Go to the Settings menu to take another look at themes and choose the one that fits you best.


Smarter navigation
The navigation panel on the left keeps your labels and chat contacts in view at all times. It's also more customizable: you can resize the labels and chat areas if you want to see more, or hide the chat area entirely via the chat icon in the lower left. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate around the interface.


Better search
Click the dropdown in the search box to see a new advanced search panel, which makes it easier and faster to find exactly what you're looking for. You can use the same panel to create a filter from any search in just a few clicks.


We’re excited to finally share Gmail’s new look with you. We’ll be bringing these changes to everyone soon, but if you’d like to make the switch right away, we’re rolling out a Switch to the new look link in the bottom-right of Gmail over the next few days.

Faces of Gmail: Forum Top Contributors

Usually for Faces of Gmail, we talk to a Googler who works on Gmail. But this month, we’re talking to our forum Top Contributors. Top Contributors (TCs) are volunteers who post in the Gmail Help Forum. When we’re impressed with the amount they are posting and the quality of their answers, we give them the TC title. We have dozens of Gmail TCs around the world posting in all different languages.

About a month ago, we got to meet some of these wonderful volunteers at the Global Top Contributor Summit. Now you can meet a few of them, too! Below we’ve included excerpts from a group interview with five of our TCs.

Gmail Forum Top Contributors at the Global Top Contributor Summit in September

Name: Brett (bkc56) Location: N. California, US Favorite Gmail Lab: Message Sneak Peek. It's so useful for quickly dealing with short messages.	Name: John (Deman_Nu) Location: Woodstock, NY, US Favorite Gmail Lab: Undo Send. It’s amazing how many times I notice something wrong in the seconds after I hit “Send.”
Name: LMckin51 Location: South Carolina, US Favorite Gmail Lab: Undo Send	Name: Tito Dutta Location: Kolkata, India Favorite Gmail Labs: Inserting Image, Add any gadget by URL, Extra Emoji
Name: wdurham Location: Hampshire, UK Favorite Gmail Labs: Sneak Peek, and after years of using Outlook, the Move Icon Column which puts the attachment paperclip in a more obvious place.

What is your Gmail expertise?

Brett: To be in the Gmail help forum is to be always learning. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I tend to focus on topics like account recovery, account security, missing messages, labels versus folders, and account backup.

LMckin51: I like teaching users how to keep their accounts safe, and how to avoid scams. I also like to help them learn about all the Gmail settings.

What do you like about participating in the forum?

wdurham: It's great to feel you are helping people get more comfortable with Gmail, or solve particular problems they're having. What's even greater is the amount I learn myself each time I help someone solve a problem. Best of all is that "Eureka!" moment, when you spend ages explaining one of Gmail's unique concepts, like labels, and the light suddenly dawns for the user.

Tito: It’s a great place to learn new things. The forum has taught me to think deeply. When an asker replies to my post in the forum, it helps me to assess my own answers.

What's your most memorable forum experience?

wdurham: When people give out the wrong email address, the real owners of that address find themselves receiving mail meant for someone else -- like a “wrong number” phone call. Sometimes they don’t understand what happened and incorrectly think it’s a Gmail problem. I answered one such query a few months back only to have the "someone else" join the thread and ask for her missing mail to be sent on to her because she gave out the wrong address - thus conclusively proving my point!

John: I was helping one woman who had accidentally deleted a number of emails that were important to her. Using search queries, I was able to help her find some of messages she thought she deleted. She emailed to thank me and I was overwhelmed by what she said: "I honestly am warmed to be reminded that there are selfless people helping others that they don't even know. It means a lot! So even if I never find the rest of the emails you've still helped me to feel better."

What are you doing when you're not posting in the forum?

Brett: I have a full-time job as a software engineer plus a wife and four kids. I also play guitar, collect Legos, and watch movies (often sci-fi).

LMckin51: In my spare time I create and maintain websites. I also take photographs at events at my church.

What words of advice do you have for Gmail users?

Tito: Explore Gmail settings pages and Gmail Labs. Use and play with web browser extensions, plugins and and reliable userscripts. And the old rule: if you have any question on Gmail (or anything), don't forget to search in Google first.

Brett: Gmail’s servers are very reliable, but it’s always a good idea to do regular backups in case you accidentally delete mail you need, or in case your account is compromised by someone getting your password (for example, if you reused your Gmail password on another website and it was stolen from there). Personally, I like Got Your Back as a backup/restore utility. Another resource for exporting and saving your data is Google’s Data Liberation Front.

John: Forum posters, please remember that we are volunteers who are here to help you. We recognize that you are often angry or upset when you come to us with serious problems, but it is much easier to help when your posts focus on providing the information we need rather than on your emotions. Feel free to ask questions if you don’t understand us and let us know if we misunderstood something about your situation. We also greatly appreciate it when you let us know when your questions have been answered!

Gmail and Gmail for mobile go global again, available in Persian

At Google, we want to make our products universally accessible and useful, and that means providing them for as many people as possible in the language they speak. The Gmail and Google Localization teams have worked together to bring Gmail to people around the world in 53 languages. Today that number grows to 54, because we’re proud to announce that through working with the Persian Initiative Team, we are able to release Persian (Farsi - فارسی), as the newest language available in Gmail. If you or someone you know speaks Persian, they can change the language in Gmail by selecting it on the Gmail settings page, under the language dropdown.



Gmail for mobile is also now available in Persian through your mobile browser.


To read this announcement in Persian, visit the Google Persian blog.

Introducing multiple sign-in and preferences on Gmail for mobile

The Gmail for mobile team works hard to bring you features that make you more productive on the go. Today, we will highlight some new features for Gmail in your mobile browser.

Multiple sign-in support

Just like on your desktop, you can now to sign into multiple accounts simultaneously. To sign into an additional account, click on the account switcher at the bottom of the threadlist, then click ”Sign into an another account.” You can quickly switch between accounts by selecting the desired account from the Accounts menu.



Mobile-specific signature

We know that autocorrect and other mobile spell-checks can be frustrating as you are typing on the go. Let your friends know that you are responding via your mobile phone so that they understand why you might have sent a message that you are meeting for "monitors" and not "mojitos". It's an easy way to make them understand why your message might be short or have a few typos. To create a mobile signature, from the menu view, press the new settings icon, choose your signature, and then check the box that tells us you want to activate it. If you ever want to disable the mobile signature, you can uncheck the box and we will use your desktop signature instead.


Vacation Auto-Responder

Ever forgotten to set your out-of-office auto-reply in Gmail before going on a trip? You don’t have to worry about that anymore, since you can now set your auto-reply using the mobile interface. Simply choose a start and end date and specify your message, just like on the desktop interface.


As part of added multiple sign-in support, we’ve updated URLs so that each account can have a separate bookmark. For those who have previously bookmarked Gmail for Mobile, please update your bookmark. If you haven’t, now is a great time to head to mail.google.com on your smartphone or tablet browser and add a bookmark to your home screen.

Never run out of calling credit with auto-recharge

If you're calling internationally from Gmail a lot, you may have noticed that your calling credit goes a very long way... which makes it easy to get caught off guard when it runs out.

So based on your feedback, we implemented the ability to auto-recharge your account: just go to your billing page (click on the add credit link next to your balance) and select the recharge amount. When your calling credit dips under $2 or 2€ we will automatically charge your credit card on file for the selected amount.

This feature becomes available after your first purchase and can be changed or disabled at any time.

Improved accessibility for Google Calendar

Today we announced some of the updates we’ve released recently to make Google’s applications more accessible to the blind community. Google Calendar now has new keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support for our blind users. Members of the blind community can now use JAWS, VoiceOver and ChromeVox to manage your calendars, create and edit events or simply browse your events. Here are a few examples of how screen readers and keyboard shortcuts work with Google Calendar:

• In your calendar lists, you can use the up and down arrow keys to navigate between your calendars. For each calendar in the list, you’ll hear its name and can use the spacebar to turn the calendar on or off. To remove a calendar from the list, use the delete key.
• In the agenda view, you can use the up and down arrow keys to move between events and use the left and right arrow keys to move between dates. To expand an event and expose the event details, press enter. To go to the event details page, type ‘e’. To remove an event, press delete. Although agenda view provides the best screen reader experience today, we are also working on improved accessibility for other views.
• In the guest list on the create/edit event page, you can navigate around using the up and down arrow keys. Use the spacebar to switch a guest's status between optional and required. To remove a guest from the list, use the delete key.
• Additional keyboard shortcuts make it easier to use Google Calendar no matter which view or screen you’re on. Type ‘c’ to create an event, ‘/’ to start a search, and ‘+’ to add a calendar.

For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts and to learn more about using Google Calendar with screen readers, please visit the help center. With these new accessibility features, we hope to make it easier for everyone to use Google Calendar. Please use this form to share your feedback directly with the accessibility team so we can continue to improve our products.

Gmail account security in Iran

We learned last week that the compromise of a Dutch company involved with verifying the authenticity of websites could have put the Internet communications of many Iranians at risk, including their Gmail. While Google’s internal systems were not compromised, we are directly contacting possibly affected users and providing similar information below because our top priority is to protect the privacy and security of our users.

While users of the Chrome browser were protected from this threat, we advise all users in Iran to take concrete steps to secure their accounts:

1. Change your password. You may have already been asked to change your password when you signed in to your Google Account. If not, you can change it here.
2. Verify your account recovery options. Secondary email addresses, phone numbers, and other information can help you regain access to your account if you lose your password. Check to be sure your recovery options are correct and up to date here.
3. Check the websites and applications that are allowed to access your account, and revoke any that are unfamiliar here.
4. Check your Gmail settings for suspicious forwarding addresses or delegated accounts.
5. Pay careful attention to warnings that appear in your web browser and don’t click past them.

For more ways to secure your account, you can visit http://www.google.com/help/security. If you believe your account has been compromised, you can start the recovery process here.

Gmail: It’s cooler in the cloud

Cloud computing is secure, simple, keeps you productive and saves you money. But the cloud can also save energy. A recent report by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Verdantix estimates that cloud computing has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by millions of metric tons. And Jonathan Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford who has led several studies on data center energy use, has written that for many enterprises, the cloud “is significantly more energy efficient than using in-house data centers.”

Because we’re committed to sustainability, we sharpened our pencils and looked at our own services to see how they stack up against the alternatives.

We compared Gmail to the traditional enterprise email solutions it’s replaced for more than 4 million businesses. The results were clear: switching to Gmail can be almost 80 times more energy efficient than running in-house email. This is because cloud-based services are typically housed in highly efficient data centers that operate at higher server utilization rates and use hardware and software that’s built specifically for the services they provide—conditions that small businesses are rarely able to create on their own.

An illustration of inefficient server utilization by smaller companies compared to efficient utilization in the cloud.

If you’re more of a romantic than a businessperson, think of it this way: It takes more energy to send a message in a bottle than it does to use Gmail for a year, as long as you count (PDF) the energy used to make the bottle and the wine you drank.

We ran a similar calculation for YouTube and the results are even more striking: the servers needed to play one minute of YouTube consume about 0.0002 kWh of energy. To put that in perspective, it takes about eight seconds for the human body to burn off that same amount. You’d have to watch YouTube for three straight days for our servers to consume the amount of energy required to manufacture, package and ship a single DVD.

In calculating these numbers, we included the energy used by all the Google infrastructure supporting Gmail and YouTube. Of course, your own laptop or phone also consumes energy while you’re accessing Google, so it’s important to choose an efficient model.

There’s still a lot to learn about the global impacts of cloud computing, but one thing we can say with certainty: bit for bit, email for email, and video for video, it’s more efficient in the cloud.

Using Gmail, Calendar and Docs without an Internet connection

The great thing about web apps is that you can access all of your information on the go, and we’ve introduced ways to use Google Apps on a variety of devices like mobile phones and tablets. But it’s inevitable that you’ll occasionally find yourself in situations when you don’t have an Internet connection, like planes, trains and carpools. When we announced Chromebooks at Google I/O 2011, we talked about bringing offline access to our web apps, and now we’re taking our first steps in that direction. Gmail offline will be available today, and offline for Google Calendar and Google Docs will be rolling out over the next week, starting today.

Gmail Offline is a Chrome Web Store app that’s intended for situations when you need to read, respond to, organize and archive email without an internet connection. This HTML5-powered app is based on the Gmail web app for tablets, which was built to function with or without web access. After you install the Gmail Offline app from the Chrome Web Store, you can continue using Gmail when you lose your connection by clicking the Gmail Offline icon on Chrome’s “new tab” page.


Google Calendar and Google Docs let you seamlessly transition between on- and offline modes. When you’re offline in Google Calendar, you can view events from your calendars and RSVP to appointments. With Google Docs you can view documents and spreadsheets when you don’t have a connection. Offline editing isn’t ready yet, but we know it’s important to many of you, and we’re working hard to make it a reality. To get started using Google Calendar or Google Docs offline, just click the gear icon at the top right corner of the web app and select the option for offline access.

IT administrators can deploy Chrome Web Store apps to users en masse by setting up organizational policies for Chrome.

Today’s world doesn’t slow down when you’re offline and it’s a great feeling to be productive from anywhere, on any device, at any time. We’re pushing the boundaries of modern browsers to make this possible, and while we hope that many users will already find today’s offline functionality useful, this is only the beginning. Support for offline document editing and customizing the amount of email to be synchronized will be coming in the future. We also look forward to making offline access more widely available when other browsers support advanced functionality (like background pages).

Free calls home from Gmail for all U.S. service members

We understand that it’s not always easy or affordable for our troops serving overseas to call friends and family at home, so starting today we’re making it completely free for all uniformed military personnel with valid United States Military (.mil) email addresses to call the United States, right from Gmail.

There are two easy steps to enable free calling from Gmail (detailed instructions):

1. Add your valid .mil email address to your Google Account
   
2. Click on the Call phone link at the top of the Gmail chat roster and install the voice and video Gmail plugin if you haven’t already.

And don’t forget that for friends and family at home in the U.S., calling troops abroad is as little as $.02/minute.

Similar to free calling within the U.S., free calling to the U.S. for service members will be available for at least the rest of 2011.

We recognize and appreciate the sacrifices U.S. troops make when they serve abroad, and we’re proud to help make it a little bit easier for them to stay connected and hear a familiar voice.