Blogs on Gmail and Google Accounts

Labels are among the unique features of Gmail. So, while reading through the Gmail Help article on Labels,  Create labels to organize Gmail , I was a bit surprised when I realized that it does not contain instructions on how to change the color of the labels.  When a label is created in Gmail, they are assigned a default color which is somewhat dark grayish. To change the default color, head over to the left panel section of the Gmail page where the labels are listed, locate the label, and hover the mouse pointer over it.  When you do that, you will notice a 3-dot (overflow/more menu) icon appear on the right side. Click on it to see a list of label-related actions. Click on the first option that reads Label color to see a palette of preset combinations. Click on any to select and apply that combination of text and background color to that label. If you do not fancy any of the preset color combinations of the palette, or if you have exhausted them owing t

At times, for various reasons, we need to access the Gmail standard view and all we have with us is our mobile phone. The standard view is only accessible via supported desktop browsers and I have seen many users in the Gmail Help Community inconvenienced while having to access the Gmail standard view from their mobile devices. Hence, this blog. For the sake of convenience, I have decided to list the steps separately for Android phone and iPhone. Click on the links below to directly go to the section that describes the steps for your device. Steps for Android Steps for iPhone For testing purposes, I have chosen to use Chrome on my Android phone and Safari on my iPhone as they are the commonly used browsers in those devices respectively, and are likely to benefit the maximum number of users.  I have also ensured that the browsers are running their latest versions. Additionally, I have included the screenshot of how to request Desktop Site in Chrome browser for iOS. In th

Users in the Gmail Help Community often post about their emails that have gone missing. Depending on how one uses Gmail and the actions that have been specified or performed with regards to those messages, there can be many ways for messages to get misplaced and this can happen with both incoming or existing messages. In this blog, we take a look at the various aspects of this issue by dividing our discussion into the following three sections: The various reasons messages may get missing How to search for those missing messages and prevent further occurrences In cases of unsuccessful search 1. The various reasons messages may get missing A message may get moved over to another inbox category based upon Gmail's classification of emails or an existing Categorize as filter defined by the user. Messages may skip inbox because of an existing Skip inbox filter defined by the user or because of an archive Gmail's copy option selected in Gmail's POP/Forwarding s