Google Labs Adds Task List to GMail

Wow, Google Labs just keeps adding and adding functionality to the Google stable of apps. Now you can have a task list in your GMail or Google Apps Premier Mail, made from the incoming mails you indicate.

How to Enable Your GMail Task List

You can enable the GMail or "GAPE" Mail Task List by visiting the Google Labs tab in your GMail settings, and enabling Tasks.

1. Enable your Labs Tab if you have not already.
2. Visit the Labs tab and Enable Tasks, per the screenshot in this article.

That's it. You can now check-select any mail item, choose Actions, and convert the mail into a Task. The Task list is accessible by the keyboard shortcut "gk".

The GMail task list is not uber-sophisticated, but it is functional. If you don't use something like OmniFocus, this might be your tool. Enjoy!

Enable Google Labs in Google Apps Premier

If you read my post about enabling Google Labs in GMail, I'm happy to report that the trick also works in Google Apps Premier Edition "GAPE". Go to the Labs tab via an URL like this (edit it so that it has your own GAPE domain).

https://mail.google.com/a/your-gape-domain.com/?labs=1#settings/labs

Now you can have that Google Labs goodness in GAPE. Enjoy!

New Google Gadgetry in Gmail

You might have noticed a couple of new Google Labs features available in Gmail. If you have your Google Labs tab enabled, you can go there, scroll to the bottom, and check the new Google Gadget-related features out. Now you can get a Calendar view or a Docs view via Gadgets right within your Gmail, or specify any Gadget URL as well. Google moves so fast sometimes it is hard to keep up. Nice to have the new features, though!

Enabling Labs Tab in Gmail

If you would like to use some of the Google Labs features in Gmail but cannot find the Labs tab, you can enable it by visiting the following URL after you log in:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=1#settings/labs

Now you can just click the Labs tab and start selecting the Labs features you want, like "Advanced IMAP Controls" to avoid downloading the entire All Mail folder. Gmail will remember you want the Labs tab for next time.

Save Local Disk with Gmail "Advanced IMAP Controls"

I outlined "Setting up Leopard Mail.app with Google Gmail IMAP" previously, and Google Labs has released a new feature for regular and Google Applications Premier Edition Gmail - Advanced IMAP Controls. This tip shows you how to avoid having to sync the GMail "All Mail" folder, thus saving a considerable amount of local hard disk space in many cases. Before enabling Google Labs features, note the caveat mentioned by Google on this FAQ.

At any rate, here's how to enable Advanced IMAP Controls:

1. Close Mail.app.
2. In Gmail settings, Labs tab, turn on "Advanced IMAP Controls" by enabling it.
3. Delete the locally sync'ed All Mail Folder.
4. Start Mail.app and confirm. You can press Cmd-0 to check activity in Mail.app.

You can easily delete your local copy of the All Mail folder from Terminal. Use the sudo command to run a bash shell within your shell, and feed the password prompt your administrator password. You can check the size of the various folders using du, and rm -rf to force-delete the folder. Exit will get you out of the sudo'ed bash prompt and back to your normal prompt.

jrc $ cd ~/Library/Mail/IMAP-rick.cogley\@imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]
jrc $ sudo bash
Password: *********
bash-3.2 # ls
All Mail.imapmbox Drafts.imapmbox Reference.imapmbox Starred.imapmbox
Expiring.imapmbox	Sent Mail.imapmbox	Trash.imapmbox OmniFocus.imapmbox Spam.imapmbox
bash-3.2 # du -h -d 1
bash-3.2 # rm -rf All \Mail.imapmbox/
bash-3.2 # exit
jrc $ 

When you restart Mail.app, the folders for which you had sync enabled which are now disabled, will take a moment to disappear. I saved myself 2 GB of disk space by enabling this.