13 Gmail Plugins You Should Try Right Now

There is no denying the power of Gmail. And armed with a handful of extensions and add-on services, you can rlly turn Gmail into the ultimate emailing powerhouse. From enhancing and tidying your contacts list, to implementing an elaborate productivity system in your inbox, almost anything’s possible. You just need to know how.And because of Gmail’s popularity, the list continues to grow, diversify, giving users countless new ways to make the service even more useful. Here’s a look at some of the tools you can use to enhance your Gmail experience.FollowUp CCWhile Boomerang is a grt plugin for reminding yourself about emails you need to reply to,FollowUp CCtakes it one step further, and can send your recipient a tle reminder that you still haven’t hrd from them. By simply adding a specific email address to the CC field, you can determine how long to wait before a follow up email is sent to anyone who is copied on the email.There are a variety of ways you can formulate the address, from specifying the length of time to wait or specifying the actual date and time. For example, if you want the follow up email sent on July 20, you would add the address jul20@followup.cc. If you want the follow up email sent in one week, you’d add 1w@followup.cc. If you want it sent in one week at 2pm, you’d add 1w-2pm@followup.cc.FollowUp CC provides a complete list of examples of how to formulate the addresshere.What’s rlly cool about the service is the different ways in which it can be used. You can even bookmark websites with the handy bookmarklet, setting the exact time and date you want to be reminded of the site, making it an interesting alternative toInstapaper.FollowUp CC comes with a series of plans. If you want to try it out for free, you get 25 reminders per month. The paid packages range from $5 a month for 100 reminders, to $15 a month for 1,000 reminders.CloudMagicGmail’s srch fture is unparalleled, but if you want to make it even more useful the extensionCloudMagicadds a few interesting options. Not only does it give you offline srch capability, it also lets you simultaneously srch several Google services including Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and your contacts.Because the extension sits in your browser rather than in Gmail itself, you can srch your email account without having to log in at all, and preview messages to boot.XobniXobnifor Gmail is still in private beta, but you can use it now on your or through Outlook. The extension will automatically crte your address book based on emails you receive, and on your phone you can add received phone calls and text messages to that list. The contact information will include a photo, any contact information provided and, like Rapportive, will also include links and updates from social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The extension also enhances the srch function, making it sier than ever to find the exact contact you’re looking for.Find Big MailGmail is pretty erous when it comes to space, but if you’ve been using the service for a while, and are a bit of a hoarder, you could find yourself rching full capacity. If you want an sy way to find and get rid of the emails hogging space,Find Big Mailcouldn’t make it any sier. Simply plug in your email address to the service, and it will crte a series of labels and apply them to messages over 100KB and up.ScrublyIf your Gmail contact list is a little bit unruly,Scrublycan help you get rid of duplie entries. Compatible both with Gmail and Google Apps accounts, after connecting your accounts, Scrubly will then scan your contact list for exact duplies, junk contacts (or contacts lacking any significant information), or loosely matching contacts. Once you’re done, Scrubly will erate a report of how many changes it made to your address book.If you don’t like the changes that Scrubly has made, you can always restore your contacts using the automatically erated backup.The free version of the service will scan up to 250 contacts, but if your contact list is any bigger than that you’ll have to upgrade to a premium account.Send Using GmailIf you’re using Gmail in a web browser, it can get pretty annoying when you click on a contact link only to find Outlook, Mac Mail, or whatever program is set as the default on your computer. With the Chrome extension,Send Using Gmailyou can make sure that next time you click such a link, aCompose mailwindow in Gmail will open up. There’s no set-up process – install the extension and it will set Gmail as your default email client.You can also right-click selected text or links in Chrome to automatically populate your new email window.TaskforceTaskforceis a Gmail add-on that literally turns your emails into tasks. It’s the ultimate productivity tool because not only does it let you get everything done in one window, it’s also collaborative and syncs with Google Tasks and Calendar.When converting emails into tasks, the subject line becomes the task, which you can edit, add a due date and enable collaboration, or in other words, keep the other party updated of your progress.Taskforce is not only a fabulous app for keeping you on top of your to-do list, it’s also an sy way to de-clutter your inbox. Rather than keep the email in your inbox until the task is done, simply convert, archive, and get on with your work.SaneboxSaneboxis the perfect service for anyone who’s Gmail inbox has gotten out of hand. After installing the extension, you’ll only have to wait a few minutes while Sanebox does its magic. Sanebox works a little like Gmail’s own Priority Inbox, but in a more distraction free method. Using an aorithm, it sorts through your emails, archiving those that are considered unimportant, adding the label @SaneLater. Anything considered important stays in your inbox.While Priority Inbox does have a few extra options, there is something to be said for Sanebox’s completely distraction free method of getting all of the unimportant emails out of sight.After letting Sanebox have at it with my Gmail inbox, my 1000+ unrd messages were down to 21, and the filtering was pretty accurate. The @SaneLater label was filled with Twitter notices, newsletters that I had unwittingly signed up for, and a bunch of automated messages. Sanebox is free to try for 30 days, after which it’ll cost you at $4.95 a month.Active InboxActive Inboxturns your Gmail inbox into the ultimate ‘Get Things Done’ (GTD)tool. After installing the extension, you can choose which email accounts you want to use it with. This is a useful fture if you have more than one email account and don’t want to apply the system to all of them.Active Inbox works on a very simple principle but it can be a lifesaver in terms of keeping you organized. It depends entirely on Gmail’s labels, giving you both the system and some handy buttons to get started. Once you’ve installed the extension, Active Inbox will crte a series of labels – ‘Action’, ‘Waiting’ and ‘Some Day’ – which you can apply to emails using the specially crted menu.It also gives you an sy way to crte projects, and assign emails to that project, using nothing more than labels.To keep you organized, all of the emails with labels can be accessed from a menu on the left hand side of the screen.The paid version of Active Inbox adds more ftures, including ‘ddlines’, ‘egories’, and a ‘reply to self’ link, making it sy to save notes and thoughts in your email account.Active Inbox is compatible with Gmail and Google Apps accounts and can be installed in Firefox and Chrome.0BoxerAchieving Inbox Zero is a grt feeling, especially if you’re a productivity buff. Nothing feels better than knowing that you’ve archived, answered, deleted, and sorted through all of your emails. 0Boxer is a service which aims to bring a little fun into the mix, making a game out of it.After authorizing your Gmail account and installing the extension, a new toolbar will be visible at the top of the page. ch time you delete or archive an email, you rn a point, and as you pass certain milestones you’ll rn badges as well. Of course 0Boxer is more fun if your friends are on there as well, and you can keep track of who’s in the ld.
0Boxer is compatible with Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Mailplane.ToutAppDo you find yourself having to write the same email over and over again? While Gmail’s own Canned Responses can be useful, The Firefox and Chrome add-on,ToutApp, is like Canned Responses on steroids. Not only can you crte and use a series of templates for those repetitive emails, you can also keep track of your email stats. ToutApp comes with an analytics fture which gives you some pretty interesting statistics on how often your emails are opened, and replied to.While ToutApp does require you to install an extension, the emails aren’t sent from your inbox themselves, but rather from the ToutApp website.With the free version of ToutApp you can send up to 7 emails a day, and track the statistics of up to two templates. If you need more, paid plans start at $12 a month.RapportiveWith this handy little extension,Rapportive,your Gmail contact list is enhanced, showing you all kinds of additional information about the people you’re in touch with.Rapportive adds a sidebar when an email is open, with links to your contacts’ social profiles, a profile , and any other information they have plugged into their accounts. It also displays a list of recent emails you’ve received from that contact.As far as your own profile is concerned, you can edit it to your hrt’s content, adding or removing accounts, and showing only the information that you want others to see.Rapportive can also turn your Gmail account into a Twitter client. For that to work, you have to visitthispage to activate the service. Once active, you will not only be able to see your contacts’ latest tweets, but also reply and retweet.Rapportive is compatible with both Gmail and Google Apps accounts, and can be used in Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Mailplane.BoomerangBoomerangis a grt Gmail extension that will stop those important emails from falling through the . If you send and receive a lot of emails, it’s sy to forget when you’re waiting for a reply. Once installed, Boomerang can return an email to your inbox, after a certain amount of time if you haven’t received a response. Boomerang also makes it sy to schedule an email to send at a later time.Boomerang is also a grt tool for dling with email clutter. If you receive an email, but don’t need to dl with it just yet, you can ‘boomerang’ it to return to your inbox after a certain amount of time, and that way it won’t slip into the depths of your email, where you’re bound to forget it.Source: The Next Web