Blogs on Gmail and Google Accounts

The Gmail Activity Information (formerly known as the Gmail Last Account Activity) window presents the easiest way to check for unauthorized account access or suspicious activities within Gmail. One can access that window by clicking on the Details link below the Last account activity link at the bottom-right of the Gmail Inbox page in the Gmail standard web UI. Note: In certain inbox layouts, such as Unread First with the Preview pane enabled and a conversation selected, you may not see the Details link. In that case, simply reload the page to see that option in the preview pane. The window includes the last ten entries when your Gmail was accessed using web browsers, POP/IMAP email clients, Gmail or third-party mobile apps, any other Google apps, etc. and lists the IP address that accessed your email, the associated location, as well as the time and date. As shown, some of the entries will have a “Show details” link next to them to display additional information when clicked upon. A

Our email addresses are the cornerstones of our digital life. We not just use it to send and receive emails but also use them as usernames to sign into various other apps and websites. All these cause us to receive different types of emails - ranging from personal correspondences with friends and family that we hold important to unsolicited spam messages. Over time, this accumulation eats into the storage of 15 GB available on our Google accounts -  you have to bear in mind that the storage space for your Google Account is shared between three Google products - Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos - and bring about unintended consequences where important emails addressed to that email address are bounced back off due to lack of adequate storage on your Google account.  Note : Since June 1, 2021, if you remain inactive or go over your storage quota for 2 years or longer, all of your emails may be deleted. More info is available at https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/10214036?

The original blog entry on ways to find your way around Google's email service and to perform the basic email tasks can be found here - https://blogs-on-gmail.blogspot.com/2019/02/gmail101.html .  This is a supplemental blog entry because recently, Google decided to expand Chat access to consumer users, thereby causing changes to the Gmail web and mobile apps UI. Here, we shall highlight the changes made in the Gmail standard view web UI and also answer some of the frequently asked questions related to this topic. A bit of history to begin with.  This used to be the Gmail web UI prior to its redesign in 2019: After the redesign in 2019, Gmail used to look like as shown below. Two very prominent sections in the left panel - Gmail labels (#1) on top and Hangouts (#2) below it. Thereafter, sometime in 2020, Meet was introduced in Gmail and the UI was changed again. Here, we find a third section in the left panel, for Meet (#1). Additionally, a new Support icon “?” was added (#2) and

In my blog on  Adding Image Hyperlinks in Gmail signature , I had discussed ways to insert an image to your Gmail signature from your computer or via a web URL. Soon thereafter, I became aware of an issue where images were inserted into the Gmail signature from Google Drive via web URL. To better explain, here are the steps: An image in Google Drive is set to " Anyone with the link " and the sharing URL copied. The Insert image icon in the Gmail signature area clicked, the Web URL tab chosen and the copied Drive URL pasted and the image is previewed correctly. The blue Select button is clicked. It is then the issue is noted. The image element is inserted, but as a placeholder and the image is not visible. The steps to resolve this issue are included below: The Insert image icon in the Gmail signature area clicked, the Web URL tab chosen and the copied Drive URL pasted and the image is previewed correctly. Now, instead of clicking on the blue Select button, right click on the

Gmail has recently added Contacts in the right-side add-on panel and in the process, brought about some changes in ways Contacts now gets saved from Gmail.  For starters, the " Add to Contacts " options in the hovercard is now gone and replaced with a " More info " link.  So, of late, many users are seen posting in the Gmail Help Community and asking about how they can add contacts directly from Gmail or edit contact details from Gmail.  To add a contact directly from Gmail, click open the conversation and then, click on the Contacts add-on from the right-side panel (shown as 1). It will default to showing contacts " In this thread ", then click on the contact you wish to add to contacts (shown as 2). The next screen shows the " Add to contacts " icon at the top-right corner. Click on it. After a few moments, the confirmation would show up at the bottom of the screen. Thereafter, to view, edit or delete the contact, click on the " Open in ne

Almost everyone loves a fancy, attractive signature. Especially professionals, who would like to display their logo that redirects to their website or social-platform logos that links to their profile pages. We often receive questions on this topic in the Gmail Help Community, hence this blog post. To begin, we would need the relevant logos or social media icons. I'm not big on social platforms and the only social media I use is Twitter. So, I shall use that logo as an example in this blog article. Since the logo will be a part of our Gmail signature, we won't require a big image file. In fact, a smaller file is preferable. Once we have the relevant logos and/or social media icons with us, we can proceed to create our Gmail Signature with them. So, we head over to the General tab under Gmail settings and scroll down to the Signature section. We don't have any signature created. So we click on the "+ Create new" button and insert the Signature name and then the te