My free Google Apps Gmail account has about 7.5GB of storage space, total. That's extremely generous on Google's part, but that amount of space does eventually fill up - especially if you have people sending you huge PowerPoint presentations, videos of their baby's first steps, or hilarious kitten photos in full resolution (because they have no idea what "resolution" means, much less how to reduce it).

What I find perplexing is that Google never included an option to sort or filter messages by size. I have no doubt that this is a business decision, because implementing such a feature would be trivial for the Gmail team. To speak bluntly, I think Google wouldn't mind it so much if I ran out of free space on my Google Apps account; then I'd have to get some more space, and this time it would cost money.

If I actually needed more space, or even if Google was simply upfront about its reluctance to provide such an option, I'd be fine with this. As things stand now, I feel that Google is being uncharacteristically stingy.

This is where Find Big Mail comes into play. While Google does not provide a way to filter by size, it does provide IMAP access. Find Big Mail accesses your Gmail account via IMAP, and it catalogs all of your messages by size. It creates three labels - one for messages larger than 2MB, one for messages larger than 500KB, and the last is for messages larger than 100KB.

Once it completed scanning my account, I simply clicked the label that said FindBigMail > 2mb, selected all messages, and clicked Delete. I then went to the trash folder and emptied that. Voilà - I dropped from 64 percent occupied space to 36 percent. How awesome is that?

Find Big Mail's free option scans only a third of your total mailbox, but it was enough for me. For $5 it will scan your whole Gmail account. You don't have to provide it with your password - only authorize it via Google's own access control. Once it's done, you can revoke its access from your Google account page. I highly recommend it!

Find Big Mail lets you quickly free space on your Gmail account originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading How to rescue your friends' email addresses from Facebook and export them to Gmail

How to rescue your friends' email addresses from Facebook and export them to Gmail originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gmail gets a new logo, slimmer homepage originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 06:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• There's no content filtering (no rules)
• Incoming mail from people that don't use Facebook will automatically hit your normal, 'non-priority' inbox
• You can move friends down the priority list, and move 'external' non-Facebook friends up
• Message forwarding will be possible
• Unlimited storage! Or at least, no explicit cap on how much data you can store
• There's a video after the break that demonstrates the new Messages product

Continue reading Facebook Messages: combine all of your inboxes and IM clients into one, unlimited storage service

Facebook Messages: combine all of your inboxes and IM clients into one, unlimited storage service originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Facebook launches 'next generation messaging', sounds a lot like Google Wave originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Facebook Mail and Office Web Apps combo to go head-to-head with Google? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This morning, TechCrunch speculates that Facebook is going to launch a "Gmail killer" this coming Monday. Facebook has sent out invites to an event in San Francisco where they will supposedly announce it. Its working title is Project Titan, but it will probably change into something much more friendly for mass-consumption (let's just hope they don't call it "FaceMail" or something horrible like that).

Facebook already has a treasure trove of personal information and a huge messaging platform. If they throw email into the mix, this may become a real threat to Gmail. It would also make Facebook even "stickier" than it is - or provide people like me with one more reason to keep their distance from the privacy-invading behemoth.

[It's at times like these that I feel compelled to remind everyone that Hotmail and Yahoo both have more users than Gmail. A "Hotmail killer" would be far more impressive. -Ed]

Facebook to launch alleged "Gmail killer" on Monday? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 05:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We all have email. We have too much email, actually. And it stays in the inbox and just piles up, gathering dust, cobwebs and guilt. There are tons of services, systems, and lifehacks to try help us get rid of some of that overload, or at least handle it a tad better.

0Boxer is another such attempt, but it's a particularly graceful one. It comes as a Firefox or Chrome extension that hooks onto Gmail and rewards you every time you do something to handle your email. You get points for replying to messages, for archiving them, and even for composing new messages -- though that last bit seems a tad counter-intuitive. I thought the idea was having less email, not more.

Still, the concept is very cool. You also get "badges" when you perform particularly impressive feats, such as archiving your first message (I'm a big boy now!).

Since this is 2010, everything must be social - and 0Boxer doesn't disappoint. You can use it to find your friends who are also playing the game, and supposedly compete with them. I haven't tried this (you need to have friends for this to work), but it's definitely intriguing. All in all, it does add a bit of interest and fun when replying to scads of messages!

[Via: Switched]

0Boxer makes handling your email into a game, is awesome originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Full-time SSL goes Live -- on Hotmail, SkyDrive, Docs, Photos, and Devices originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As both a huge Gmail nerd and a huge keyboard shortcut nerd, I was pretty excited to learn that Gmail has a couple of shortcuts that are not documented anywhere. If you often find yourself needing to compose messages that include people on the CC or BCC fields, you can now launch a brand new message with one or both of those fields available by default. As Google Operating System reports, instead of hitting the 'c' button to compose a new message, you can now hit 'd' to compose a new message with the CC field showing, or 'b' to compose a new message with both the CC and BCC fields showing.

Undocumented Gmail keyboard shortcuts for composing CC and BCC email originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Hotmail adds full-session SSL for more secure webmail originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 06 Nov 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gmail call recording coming soon originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Gmail team has just announced five new themes for Gmail:

• Basic Black: Shown above, it's a bare bones high-contrast theme; it's actually quite soothing.
• Basic White: It's the same as Basic Black, only in white.
• Android: This one seems like kind of a shameless marketing move (where's the "iPhone" theme?), but it's really a nice theme. You get a subtle circuit-board pattern up top, with a tiny Android hanging off of the Chat pane. It's very reminiscent of the Android theme for Google Chrome.
• Tree Tops: It's exactly what it sounds like. You get a bunch of foliage in the header, and the whole thing is very green. It's not particularly exciting.
• Marker: This theme takes a highlighter to Gmail. It basically makes it look as if the Chat window and various headers are just "markered in" by hand. This one is actually the coolest - I think I'll be keeping it.

The themes are already available for both Gmail and Google Apps users. Try them out, and if you can't decide you can always just click Random at the bottom right corner!

Gmail gets five new themes which emphasize usability, fun originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"Remember Mom's birthday," says the bland email from Google Calendar. Sometimes that's enough, really -- but other times, you may want to add a bit of pizzazz to make things more interesting... Especially if you're sending that scheduled reminder to someone other than yourself.

Alertful is a simple, well-designed email alert service. It works kind of like e-cards: there are tailor-made reminders for all sorts of specific occasions, such as a birthday, a meeting reminder, a holiday reminder, a "pet to the vet" reminder, and even a "money reminder." It's British, so there's an "MOT renewal reminder," too (that's Ministry of Transport, I believe). Each reminder has a little tie-wearing dude with a speech bubble, telling you something like "Remember, your MOT is about to expire on...." Here's a sample.

When you set a reminder, you have to fill in a short form with the date, the email you wish to send the reminder to, the frequency (one off, or how often the reminder should be sent), and some other details. I only wish they had custom forms for the different reminders - they all seem to contain the same set of questions. All in all, Alertful is a neat little service.

Alertful lets you schedule cute, lively email reminders originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Hotmail makes using your existing email address easier than ever originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Easily set your Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail as Windows' default email client originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Updated Gmail for iPhone blurs the line between Web and native apps originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo! Mail Beta arrives, claims to be at least twice as fast, safer, easier to use originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Usually, when you hit Archive (or Delete) while reading a Gmail message, you find yourself back in the message list of whatever label you were reading (the Inbox, for most). However, once you're there, you usually just click the next message to keep on reading and handling your email.

So... why not just move on to the next message automatically? That's just what the Gmail guys thought, and hence this new Labs feature. Sure, you already have keyboard shortcuts that do this -- [ and ] by default -- but most people don't use them. This new setting makes the process automatic, so you don't have to remember any keyboard shortcut. You can also decide whether "next" means "the next newer conversation" or "the next older conversation." Very handy!

Gmail launches new Labs feature: Auto advance to next message originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mozilla Thunderbird now has Firefox's excellent about:support feature originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 06:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.