# gmail: what the fuck?!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-what-the-fuck/390762>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [February 4, 2007, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-what-the-fuck/390762 "2007-02-04T07:34:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![XJETGIRLX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9fc29f/32.png) [@XJETGIRLX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XJETGIRLX)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-what-the-fuck/390762/41 "2007-02-05T12:32:39Z")

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[QUOTE=Lizard]

As for gmail, it looks like half the posters here have drunk the Kool-Aid.I’m not sure what the hell everyone else use their e-mail for, but I’m not intereste in holding chats with people and then reliving them. Even if I were, that’s what IM programs are for. gmail seems to be a failed attempt to combine the two. What I want is to be able to find a specific e-mail that contains specific information. But with gmail I can’t do that, because everything is listed as part of a “conversation” (how that term in this context pisses me off!) of e-mails whose only commonality is their authors hit “reply” to an original message from me to write me back about something wholly unrelated.  
[/QUOTE]

Just because you’re not smart enough to figure it out doesn’t make it a poorly designed application.

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-what-the-fuck/390762/42 "2007-02-05T13:01:04Z")

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I echo some of the people disagreeing with you, **Lizard**.

No application is 100%, and GMail has a few faults\*, but the advantages of the interface **greatly** outweigh them. _Once you understand the functionality_, pretty much everything you’re demanding of your mail client is not only feasible, but actually works a hell of a lot better and more flexibly than other mail clients or webmail interfaces. It just takes a while to get used to some concepts. The trick is to use the label, archive, and search features. Once you’ve started to use them and realise their utility, you’ll start to understand why everyone’s very happy with the interface.

Accusing people of “drinking the Kool-Aid” merely because you don’t understand the innovations in the interface, which therefore doesn’t conform to what you expect to see in a mail client, is a trifle hyperbolic.

\*E.g., as mentioned, if you send a round-robin to 50 people and they all reply separately, then you have an almighty “conversation” to disentangle. However, most “conversations” are in fact on the same subject; furthermore Outlook et al have this feature too - they call it a “thread”.

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**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-what-the-fuck/390762/43 "2007-02-05T13:38:13Z")

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[QUOTE=Lizard]  
Need I point out that a “conversation” is when people communicate through TALKING; when they communicate through writing it is “correspondence.”  
[/QUOTE]

Only if you’re pedantic.

Gmail rules. Google will rule the online universe. Everything they do turns out to make sense in the long run. I trust them fully with everything they do.

I use them for eMail, spreadsheets, notebooks, calendar, maps, portal.

If Google one day said, “all right, you’re going to have to start paying us a yearly fee to use our products”, I don’t know how high they’d have to go for me to refuse.

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