When Google launched Gmail in beta on April 1, 2004, the email provider was available by invitation only, and for many people, it was an April Fool’s joke. You could only open a Gmail account if someone who had one sent you an invitation, but this was very much a genuine email service Google was launching. At the time, it was so popular that people sold invitations on eBay for over $250!
Thankfully, in 2005, Google opened Gmail up to anyone who wanted one by sending them an SMS message by request on their cellphone. Gmail set itself apart from other email providers by having Google Search built in. Other features included the ability to group messages in conversation threads and 1GB of free data storage, nearly 100 times more than other email providers offered.
Quick Facts
- Creator (person)
- Paul Buchheit
- Original Price
- N/A
- Operating System
- Cross-Platform, Web-based
- Developed By (company)
What Is Gmail: Explained
Gmail is a free email hosting service supported by subscriptions and advertisements. As part of Google’s software ecosystem, Gmail accounts became integrated with thousands of other products and services. This led to many people associating their Gmail account with their overall Google account.
Today, Gmail accounts and Google accounts have become synonymous. All Google services such as Google+, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Hangouts, Google Meet, YouTube, Google Play Store, and Google Play Services can be found together. Anyone who’s ever owned or used an Android-based smartphone has a Google account and, thus, a Gmail account.
Gmail, as an e-mail hosting service, still runs strong. It comes preinstalled as the base e-mail application on Android devices and pairs with popular Google web services like YouTube and the Google Search engine.
Even if you don’t need a cloud-based email service, Google still requires a Gmail account to be used to log in to its services like YouTube. The use of Gmail accounts as a service-wide login on mobile apps is mainly responsible for the 1.8 billion active users of Gmail today.
How to Use Gmail
Before you can begin using Gmail, you’ll need an account. In 2022, there aren’t many people who don’t have a Gmail account, but if you need to sign up for one, it’s easy. First, go to gmail.com. On the top right of the screen, you’ll see a blue button that says “Create an account.” Click it.
It should load a form to fill out for your new Google Account. It will ask for your name, a username, and a password. Once you fill out the info boxes, click on the blue next button at the bottom of the page. Now, it will ask for extra personal information to help in case you forget your login username or password. Give it your phone number, an alternative email if you have one, your birthday, and your gender. If you want to know why Google requests this information, click the helpful blue link, “Why we ask for this information.” Click the Next button.
It will present you with a long and dreaded list of Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You’ll need to review all of it. Once you finish, if you agree, click the ‘I agree’ button on the bottom right. You will now be on the homepage of your new email account.
Once you have a Google account, you can log in to your Gmail account from anywhere with your username and password. Go to gmail.com, then click the “Sign In” option next to the “Create an account” button. It will ask for your username and then your password. As an added security feature, Google may require permission from a device you’ve already used to sign in.
You will see all your emails in your inbox on the Gmail homepage. As a new account, you should have only one message. It’s from Google. You should open it and read it.
How to Organize Your Inbox
If there is one certainty about the popularity of Gmail, it’s that it has seen an explosion of content around how to best organize your inbox. This video from YouTuber Kevin Stratvert shows you how to get yourself to inbox zero and create new labels, colorize these labels, and enable multiple inboxes, one of the biggest selling points for Gmail users.
Kevin does a fantastic job of explaining how to organize Gmail in a concise and easy-to-follow way. Over 8 minutes, you get a sense of how quickly you can triage your email and how powerful Gmail can be if you try and look behind the curtain, even just a little bit. Needless to say, this video gives you all of the most essential tips and tricks and even power Gmail users will learn something new.
How to Learn Gmail
Once you have the account part figured out, you can receive, draft, and send messages to other e-mail addresses.
Received Messages
On the homepage, you’ll be shown your inbox. This is where all of your e-mail messages go by default unless the algorithm flags the message as spam through the spam filter. By default, Gmail organizes your inbox into three categories to help sort out where you receive messages: Primary, Social, and Promotions.
“Primary” is the main inbox meant to hold important messages. This usually means messages from utilities, web services, or online purchases. The “Social” tab holds emails gathered as notifications from services like Facebook, Twitter, or Twitch.
The “Promotions” tabs keep all the fantastic advertisements businesses know you love to collect. You might also notice a spam folder on the screen’s left-hand menu. This is where the spam filter places any messages it thinks may be malware or predatory.
Composing Messages
On the mobile app, you tap on the “Compose” button. You can click the button above the ‘Inbox’ selections on the web browser. You’ll be asked to enter a recipient email ID in the To field in the new windows. You’ll also need to create a subject line for the Subject field.
You can hit the “Tab” key on your keyboard or click on the empty section below the subject line to begin composing the message. Type out your e-mail until your heart is content. At the bottom of the message box, you’ll notice all the useful tools in a Word program. You can undo, redo, change the font type, bold, italic, underline, create lists, and reposition the orientation of paragraphs.
You can find other options next to the send button, such as attaching a file, inserting a picture, or selecting emojis. Once you are done writing your e-mail message, click on the ‘Send’ button.
The Difference Between Gmail and Outlook
As the two biggest email rivals in the game, Gmail and Outlook are similarly managed by competing tech giants Microsoft and Google. The good news is that both services have incredibly enticing features for computer users.
However, there are some significant differences worth noting. First and foremost, Gmail has a more intuitive and plain user interface, while Outlook adds a dizzying range of customization options that borrow from its enterprise version of Outlook.
When it comes to email organization, Gmail doesn’t use “folders” in the traditional sense, like Outlook. Instead, Gmail “labels” emails that act like folders can be archived into a label only to be searched later.
Interestingly enough, when it comes to pricing, Gmail is, for the most part, free. Yes, you can boost storage as part of the Google One service, but 15GB of free storage with every Gmail account is 100% free. On the flip side, if you want the most features out of Outlook, you must subscribe to at least the lowest-paid tier, starting at $6.99 per month.
Gmail Release History
As a cloud-based web service, Gmail’s version release history remains in-house. However, since 2014, Google has offered Gmail API for developers. That API is often used to help developers who wish to integrate Gmail services into their applications and websites. This feature enables popular services like Boomerang, an extension that allows you to manage your email to thrive quickly.
The Gmail app has been completely overhauled multiple times and will likely be overhauled again. With 1.8 billion active users, it stands to reason that Google will need to keep things fresh as new email services like Proton, Hey, and Fastmail all try to take Google’s crown with more privacy-focused features.
Still Going Strong
As it stands, Gmail is still in active development. It is an active product that regularly receives maintenance and updates to useability, privacy, and security features. When you consider that the platform holds 30.7% percent of the worldwide email market and sees more than 121 billion emails sent daily, it’s safe to say that Gmail has never been in a stronger market position.
In many ways, Gmail is synonymous with email, as meeting someone often sees you asking, “What’s your Gmail?” instead of “What’s your email?” Just as Google has become a verb related to searching the web, we’re not too far from Gmail having the same level of awareness around email. Only Outlook and its enterprise strengths stand in Gmail’s way of total global email domination.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Ascannio/Shutterstock.com.