# Tell me about Gmail **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 20, 2007, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658 "2007-12-20T02:24:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/1 "2007-12-20T02:24:26Z")
My ISP, Wildblue will be Googlized and begin using gmail Monday. The hell is gmail? ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/2 "2007-12-20T03:06:08Z")
Gmail is proof of a benevolent God who loves us and wants us to be happy. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/3 "2007-12-20T03:22:11Z")
It’s a good email service that is relatively easy to use. I’ve been using since it first came out, maybe 2 or 3 years ago. It consolidates your conversations, like if you and a friend are emailing it will all stay in one thread. That can be convenient, but also a pain in the butt if there are more than a few people in on the email. It’s worth checking out. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/4 "2007-12-20T03:22:52Z")
An excellent thing to have when you don’t want to give someone your regular email address. ---
**Author:** ![pudytat72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@pudytat72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pudytat72)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/5 "2007-12-20T03:26:48Z")
No spam. I’ve had g-mail for about a year. No problems. Love it. NO SPAM ---
**Author:** ![Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/6 "2007-12-20T03:28:34Z")
It IS my regular e-mail address. It does a beautiful job controlling spam, lets me avoid using my employer’s insipid Novell client by means of POP forwarding (ok, that’s pretty common), has bazillions of tons of free storage, gives you recipes, recycling tips and cleans the cat box. One of the above is a lie. You oght to like it, give it a fair chance. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/7 "2007-12-20T04:03:36Z")
Is it an app then? May one continue to use Outlook or Thunderbird? ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/8 "2007-12-20T04:19:53Z")
It’s a website, like yahoo, hotmail, et al. > **[Gmail](https://accounts.google.com/v3/signin/identifier?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2Fu%2F0%2F&emr=1&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2Fu%2F0%2F&ifkv=AVQVeyxZd5L_TZ7BKoDdRE4ScCmf0j6DDDCdq1cRz9W-7qDZ8efHySJtbREUHJ6siQi0lNF23P6PgA&osid=1&passive=1209600&service=mail&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=ServiceLogin&dsh=S-284231410%3A1698189648637383&theme=glif)** > > Gmail is email that’s intuitive, efficient, and useful. 15 GB of storage, less spam, and mobile access. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/9 "2007-12-20T04:21:51Z")
I’m not sure what it means for an ISP to “use” gmail. Maybe they stopped maintaining their e-mail server and told everyone to go and use Gmail instead. Anyway… Gmail is a web-based e-mail service, like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. It can also be accessed by a conventional mail program like Thunderbird or Outlook, but most people find it more convenient to just use the web interface. It has a mailbox quota of over 5GB, so there’s no need to download the messages and delete them from the server. You can just keep everything on the server, and it’ll all be accessible through the web interface. It has an _excellent_ spam filter. It has an excellent and very fast search (it’s made/run by Google, duh). It has some unconventional aspects. Mail is not listed as separate messages, but as “conversations” - kind of like the thread list on this message board. And instead of folders it has “labels” - it works similar to folders, except a conversation can have more than one label. I’ve been using it as my main e-mail address for a couple of years now, and can’t imagine how I ever did without it. IMHO it’s the best thing that’s happened to/on the Internet since the invention of the web browser. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/10 "2007-12-20T05:32:05Z")
It’s fantastic. I use it for everything non-work related. As mentioned previously, the spam filter is unbelievable. I use my Gmail address everywhere, so I know I’m on every single spammer’s list, but I only get a handful of spam messages a week. And every single one of them winds up in the Spam folder (ok, technically it’s a Spam _label_). Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. I have actually had one spam message make its way into my Inbox in the past year. You will be happy. Don’t worry. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/11 "2007-12-20T07:24:42Z")
Best free email site out there. I have been using it pretty much since it started and have nothing but praise. I have required my students to get a gmail account (for their website analytics feature) and many have said it is now all they use. And the no-spam factor is wonderful!!! ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/12 "2007-12-20T07:40:07Z")
[QUOTE=Cazzle] Gmail is proof of a benevolent God who loves us and wants us to be happy. [/QUOTE] Even this is an understatement. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/13 "2007-12-20T07:49:20Z")
The conversation threads are the best part. Say you send a mass email out to 20 people and they each respond. Standard email clients list the responses as 20 separate emails and you now have a blasted inbox. Gmail sorts all the responses into the conversation, so with one click you have access not only to your email but all the responses to it. Very good email service. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/14 "2007-12-20T10:30:42Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] Is it an app then? May one continue to use Outlook or Thunderbird? [/QUOTE] We use Google Apps Mail (essentially the same as Gmail) as our email provider at work, and I have also been using Gmail for my personal email since it was in Beta (oh wait, it’s _still_ in Beta ;)). As mentioned, you can use it with a conventional email client like Outlook or Thunderbird, or use the web interface. You can access all your mail via both the web and the desktop client. FWIW, I almost always use the web interface. It’s snappy and responsive, the conversation view is great and better than Outlook, and search is instant as you would expect from Google, while Outlook’s native search is so slow that I rarely use it. Tags are a better way of organising data than folders. I do sometimes use Outlook - integration with the operating system is better, it handles attachments more smoothly sometimes. Gmail integration with the Outlook calendar is crude, but you can use Gmail’s own pretty good web-based calendar instead. [ETA] Oh, and Gmail’s contact handling is poor. It’s supposed to automatically include everybody in your company, but it doesn’t seem to work. You keep having to add contacts when new people join. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/15 "2007-12-20T10:41:42Z")
Used to be that you got a Gmail account by invitation of an existing user, which made me feel “special” I guess. But then most users seem to have used few of their 100 or so invites, which are redundant now anyway as Gmail will let anyone sign up for an account now 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/16 "2007-12-20T11:00:01Z")
Gmail is the best email service I’ve ever used. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/17 "2007-12-20T11:13:02Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Gmail is the best email service I’ve ever used. [/QUOTE] By far. Even running my own mail server with me as the only user doesn’t even approach it. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/18 "2007-12-20T12:17:16Z")
I love gmail. And, google spreadsheets, and google docs, and google calendar. It does have an excellent spam filter, but if you’re ever expecting something that might have a hint of spam about, you better check the spam box. ---
**Author:** ![Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/19 "2007-12-20T13:38:40Z")
Google offers their Gmail servers for entities to use as their e-mail client. I’m not the tech guy, but as it was explained to me - you can continue to use your domain for e-mail addresses, but everything is on their server. It frees off-site access, because anyone can get to their e-mail through the 'net if you don’t have a web-based app for it. Our school district is about to go this route. We have about 1400 employees, we use Novell (die slowly in a bitter hell Novell, I hate you) currently. After the change, nobody’s e-mail address will change, but everyone will have the same document/calendar sharing and storage capacity that any other Gmail user has, which is roughly 10 million billion times what we have on our OWN server for each person’s use. There might be a fee for private companies to do this, but my understanding is that Google offers it completely free to educational institutions. Our IT director was telling me that several universities use this - even including alumni, and that someone out there has over 60,000 something users through this. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658/20 "2007-12-20T13:48:29Z")
[QUOTE=Mr Bus Guy] There might be a fee for private companies to do this, but my understanding is that Google offers it completely free to educational institutions. Our IT director was telling me that several universities use this - even including alumni, and that someone out there has over 60,000 something users through this. [/QUOTE] It’s free for companies for up to 200 users in their domain, with (currently) 5GB each. Or you can pay for the Premium service which I think offers five times the space. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-gmail/430658.md?page=2)