Q&A The Gmail changes

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A friend of mine likes to use the saying, “It is what it is.” And that’s pretty much what I thought when the new Gmail tabs were rolled out. It was mildly irritating at first, but I got used to it.

Then I started reading emails and talking to people and found that, for some people, it’s a bit more complex than that. At a networking group I go to a coach was concerned about her newsletter distribution, so while I was preparing to send information to her, I decided to create a blog post.

If you liked Gmail before

If you want *YOUR* Gmail to be as it was before the change:

  1. Open Gmail.
  2. Click on the gear   in the top right and select settings.
  3. Select the Inbox tab.
  4. In the Inbox type section deselect all the categories to go back to your old inbox.

(I grabbed this straight from the Google support website).

If you have subscribers

If you have a mailing list and are concerned people won’t find you because your mail now appears under the Promotions tab.

If the receivers (your subscribers) want your mail to go directly to  their inbox.

Option 1

  1. In Gmail, click on the promotions tab.
  2. Hover over the mail you want moved.
  3. Click and drag on your mouse, and move the mail to the desired tab.
  4. At the top of the screen you will get a message that looks something like this:
    The conversation has been moved to “Primary”. Undo

    “Do this for future messages from name@email.com?” Yes
  5. Click “Yes” in the popup message box to have all future messages appear in the desired tab.

Option 2

  1. In Gmail, click on the promotions tab.
  2. Right click on an email that you’d like to move.
  3. Hover over “move to tab” then hover over “primary” (or other desired tab).
  4. At the top of the screen you will get a message:
    The conversation has been moved to “Primary”. Undo

    “Do this for future messages from name@email.com?” Yes
  5. Click “Yes” at the top of screen to have all future messages appear in your primary inbox.

Of course, if you’re sending information to your email list using a service like AWeber or MailChimp, the mail will likely end up in your subscriber’s promotions area, so you might have to send out individual emails for this step. If you do send out individual emails, you’ll only need to be concerned with people that have gmail.com addresses.

Another way to contact your newsletter subscribers is to post to any social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter). In addition to this post, you can share a video that Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner made this YouTube video describing Gmail tabs.

Personally, I’ve found that I actually like the new tabs. I find it more convenient than using filters. So I have removed all my filters and let Gmail do the sorting. I’ve taken a few very items that were sorted and forced them into my “Primary” tab (client’s and colleagues newsletters and my mail from my mom’s group) but other than the things I deem important, most of the other tabs can be looked at once every day or two.

And, hey, if a promotion is over a week old, it’s probably time for it to hit the Trash. There’s something very satisfying about putting mail in trash.

When I was researching this blog post, I found this article from NYMAG that had a (short) history of what email used to look like. This article gave me an urge to dig a little deeper (I have 10 minutes before my next appointment) to find some statistics. For anyone as old as me (or a bit geekier) I bring you this tidbit. When it was closed down in 1989, ihnp4 had a capacity of 50 MG /day UUCP traffic.

So for me, I’ll take the Gmail changes as they are. Like Dylan said, “The times they are a changin’.”

Image courtesy of Ohmega1982 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net