8 Gmail Hacks That Will Change The Way You Use Email

Let's say your email is your.name@gmail.com. That's great, but the dots don't matter. At all.

If someone emails you at y.o.u.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com, it'll work just fine.

Let's say you're signing up for a new gym membership, but you don't want to give them your main email. So add a plus sign to it: your.name+GYM@gmail.com. (Anything you put after the "+" will work.)

When the first email from the gym shows up, click on it, then click "More," then "Filter messages like these." A pop-up will appear, and enter the plus sign address into the "To" line. Click "Create filter with this search."

Then you get to choose what you want to do with those emails. Want them all to go directly to trash? Just check "Delete it," and hit "Create filter" to save your setting. And you'll never see an email from your gym again! They'll automatically all go straight into the garbage.

Go back to "Settings," then "General." Scroll down to "Send and Archive," and click the "Show" button.

When you reply to a message in your inbox, you'll see the "Send & Archive" button appear. Unless you really reeeeeally need that message to hang around on the front page of your inbox, hit "Send & Archive." Your inbox will be a little bit less cluttered, and you'll still be able to find that message by searching for it in Gmail.

Go to "Settings," then "Labs," then search "Inserting Images." Enable the feature.

Then, the next time you want to respond to a co-worker with a hilarious GIF — or, you know, something practical for your job — you can embed it right there in the email. Just drag the image into the email. Or click the "Insert images" icon when you're in compose mode and add the URL for the image.

This is another excellent Gmail Labs hack. Go back to "Labs," and search for "Authentication icon for verified senders." Enable it.

The next time you get an email from a company like Ebay or PayPal, you'll see a little key next to their sender name. That's how you know the email's legit and not an email from a spammer or identity thief.

So you hate sending the same email over and over again? Gmail's got a trick for that. Again, go to "Labs," then search for "Canned Responses" and enable it.

Now here's the semi-tricky part. Go to "Compose" and write the canned email. Then, just below the "To" line, click "Canned Responses," and go down to "Save." Click "New Canned Response," and give that email a title.

Then the next time you want to reply with that canned email, click "Canned Responses" and select the email response you want. Gmail will insert it at the top of your reply, and all you have to do is send it off.

Want to connect with your contacts on social media? Use Rapportive to see all of their social profiles within your inbox — no clicking required. (It shows up like that screenshot above.)

Running out of space in your Gmail account? Use Find Big Mail to figure out what big files are clogging up your email.

Want to schedule your emails for sending at a later time? (Sometimes, you don't want your boss or professor to know you wrote an email at 3 a.m.) Use Boomerang to schedule that email for a more appropriate time.