Email is an important part of how we get things done — from planning an event with friends to organizing that family vacation to Costa Rica. And today, getting those things done is getting a little easier with new quick action buttons in Gmail, designed to help you tackle your digital to-do’s as quickly as possible.
These buttons appear next to certain types of messages in your inbox and let you take action on an email without ever having to open it. For example, you can RSVP to your friend’s party invitation or rate that restaurant you went to last night all right from the inbox. You’ll be checking things off that to-do list in no time.

Flight confirmation emails are also becoming a bit more useful. Whether you’re frequently up in the air or just the occasional traveler, when you open a flight confirmation email in Gmail, all the important information about your flight will be displayed right at the top. You’ll be able to see whether your flight is on time, when your connection is and more — no scrolling required.
These quick actions will roll out over the next few weeks, and we hope to add even more useful actions moving forward. If you are a developer and want to add actions to your emails, check out developers.google.com/gmail/schemas to learn more.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/0IJF0yVlE2o/take-action-right-from-inbox.html

Paying back your friends is now as simple as sending an email, whether you’re chipping in for lunch or reimbursing your roommate for your share of the rent.

Google Wallet is now integrated with Gmail, so you can quickly and securely send money to friends and family directly within Gmail — even if they don’t have a Gmail address. It’s free to send money if your bank account is linked to Google Wallet or using your Google Wallet Balance, and low fees apply to send money using your linked credit or debit card.

To send money in Gmail, hover over the attachment paperclip, click the $ icon to attach money to your message, enter the amount you wish to send, and press send.
While sending money in Gmail is currently only available on desktop, you can send money from Google Wallet at wallet.google.com from your phone or laptop. You will need to have set up Google Wallet to send and receive money, and Google Wallet Purchase Protection covers you 100% against eligible unauthorized payments.

We’re rolling out this feature over the coming months to all U.S. Gmail users over 18 years old, so keep an eye out for the $ icon in the attachment options. You can also get earlier access if your friends have the feature and send money to you.

To learn more, visit our website.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/NMSvWfOi9GI/send-money-to-friends-with-gmail-and.html

Today we announced Hangouts, a big improvement to Google’s real-time communication services. Instead of different versions of chat, video chat and calling across Google products, Hangouts gives you one consistent way to connect with the people you care about.

What does this mean for your Gmail? You now have the option to switch from the current version of chat to Hangouts. Simply click “Try it out” next to your chat list to switch to Hangouts and give your chat an instant facelift (literally!). You’ll now see the profile photos in the order of your most recent conversations. With Hangouts, you’ll also be able to quickly send messages, have video calls with up to ten people at once, and share photos. You can start a conversation with just one friend or even a whole group.

Hangouts transition effortlessly between desktop and mobile — in fact, Hangouts will be available in Gmail, Google+, Android phones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and as a Windows, Mac or Linux desktop application using the Chrome extension. You can start a Hangout on your phone, and pick it up in Gmail right where you left off!
The new Hangouts experience in Gmail is rolling out as an optional switch starting today. Click the “Try it out” button when it appears next to your chat list to switch right away, or you can switch later. Learn more about the new Hangouts here.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/vIUayXw6O58/try-out-new-hangouts-experience-in-gmail.html

Life gets a bit easier when your Google products work well together—whether that’s inserting a Drive file into an email or sharing a photo from Drive on Google+. As this experience becomes more seamless, separate storage doesn’t make as much sense anymore. So instead of having 10 GB for Gmail and another 5 GB for Drive and Google+ Photos, you’ll now get 15 GB of unified storage for free to use as you like between Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

With this new combined storage space, you won’t have to worry about how much you’re storing and where. For example, maybe you’re a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2 GB in Gmail. Now it doesn’t matter, because you can use your storage the way you want.

We’ll also be making updates to the Google Drive storage page, so you can better understand how you’re using storage space. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of your storage use across Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos. And if you need more storage, this is your place to upgrade, with plans starting at $4.99/month for 100 GB.

Pro tip: This change means you’re no longer limited to a 25 GB upgrade in Gmail—any additional storage you purchase now applies there, too.

These changes to Google Drive storage will roll out over the next couple of weeks. Google Apps users will also be getting shared storage, so visit the enterprise blog to learn more.

Posted by Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/CaadENJEAFo/bringing-it-all-together-15-gb-now.html

If you do a lot of scheduling over email, it’s now a little bit easier to create events directly from your Gmail. Starting today, dates and times within emails are lightly underlined: click them to schedule that conference call or lunch date without ever leaving Gmail.
When you click on one of these underlined dates, you’ll be able to preview your schedule for the day and change the title, date or time of the event. Clicking “Add to Calendar” will do exactly that — add the event to your calendar, and for extra convenience, the calendar event will include a link back to the original email.

This new feature is rolling out over the next week to everyone with the English (US) language. We’ll be adding other languages soon, so stay tuned.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/6f_XDdYLMHk/add-events-to-google-calendar-from-gmail.html

This April marks Gmail’s 9th birthday, and as year ten gets underway, it’s a good opportunity to look at how much has changed: the curse of the Bambino was broken, Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar, and we stopped referencing Xena the Warrior Princess in our blogposts. And during that time, Gmail—and online communication as a whole—evolved too.

So much of that evolution is a result of your feedback. In fact, Gmail was inspired by one user’s feedback that she was tired of struggling to find emails buried deep in her inbox. So we built a new email that leveraged the power of Google Search. You told us you were tired of spam, so we set to tackling that, and today your feedback makes it possible for Gmail to filter out well over 99% of incoming spam. You also said that you needed tools to deal with information overload, so we introduced Priority Inbox to help you manage your email (and we’re still exploring new ways to it even easier).

Simply put, whether you’ve been a Gmail user for 9 years or 9 months, your input helps us continue to keep Gmail current and useful. Thanks for taking this journey with us, and onward to year ten!

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/f4lHwtMcpD4/gmail-9-years-and-counting.html

If you are one the hundred of millions of Spanish speakers in North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean, you’ve been able to use your Gmail in Latin American Spanish since last year. Today, you can now also switch your Google Calendar language to “Español (Latinoamérica).”

Of course, it isn’t easy to find a variation of Spanish that works for someone living in say, South America, but also feels natural to a Spanish speaker in the United States or Caribbean for example. The Spanish spoken in these regions differs greatly from one country to the next due to geography, separate cultures, customs, and histories. To give all of our Latin American Spanish speakers an option that looks, feels, and sounds right, Google Localization constructed a Spanish variant that combines the most common elements from the different dialects. So whether you speak Spanish or any one of Calendar’s 42 languages, it’s now even easier to keep up with your busy schedule!

If you’re new to Calendar but already using Gmail in Latin American Spanish, just visit google.com/calendar and language settings will be ready to go. If you’ve used Calendar in the past, you’ll need to update your language settings by clicking on the gear icon in the mid-upper right of Calendar, then selecting Settings:
Once in General Settings, Language you can select Español (Latinoamérica). If you are using Google Calendar for Android, Language Settings are controlled by your phone’s Settings menu. For any questions on getting started with Calendar, please check our help center.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/_-gebnUATx8/google-calendar-now-disponible-in-latin.html

Gmail launched nine years ago on April 1st, 2004. Since then you’ve been able to use hundreds of new features that push the boundaries of what email can do and make it easier to get things done.

Starting today, you’ll get to experience the next big step for Gmail, Gmail Blue. Watch the video to learn more:

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/44FDFOqA4Y8/introducing-gmail-blue.html

You are busy people, so it’s no surprise that an overwhelming number of you opted to try out Gmail’s faster, simpler compose experience after it launched last October. In addition to telling us what you love about the new compose experience (like how much easier it is to multitask!) you’ve also been sending us helpful suggestions for what features you’d like to see added. As a result of your input, we’re now ready to introduce the new compose experience as the default for everyone. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think!

If you’re already using the the new compose experience, you’ve probably noticed it’s gotten a lot of upgrades over the last few months, from a new way to send files with Google Drive to much-requested features like pop-out replies. We’ve also added support for originally missing features like starring and labeling when composing and the Canned Responses lab.

The new compose will be rolling out to everyone over the next few days. You can learn more in our help center, or follow us on Google+, where we’ll be posting more tips for using the new compose.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/S1FeYUzCBYk/gmails-new-compose-now-default.html

Indian culture is diverse, with more than 100 languages and thousands of alphabets used every day. Depending on where you are, you might hear anything from Gujarati to Bengali and Tamil to Urdu. If you’re a speaker of these languages and use a feature phone, communicating is about to get a little easier.

Starting today, we are rolling out support for 6 Indic languages in Gmail on the feature phone browser: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu. Simply go to settings in Gmail and choose your language.

Some 500 million new users from around the world will join the Internet between now and 2015. Since most will experience the web for the first time on a mobile device, it’s important that people everywhere can communicate in the language they know best.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/-rxAX4aw7mg/indic-languages-in-gmail-on-your.html