Gmail Android feature No. 12: The Google service sweep-away

Maybe you’re the one person in the world who actually enjoys having that mammoth-sized navigation bar invading your inbox and taking up precious screen real estate — y’know, that monstrosity Google added into the app a while back to shove its latest messaging services down our throats offer an easy way to access Google Chat and Meet from within your inbox as well as via their own standalone apps?

I’ve long heard rumors that such a person exists somewhere out there. If you are that person, kindly skip over this section and move on to the next one, as this tip won’t apply to you.

For the rest of us, though, do yourself an enormous favor and turn that blasted added navigation bar off. Just go back into the Gmail Android app’s settings, tap the name of your account, and then:

• Uncheck the box next to “Chat,” beneath the “General” header…
• And scroll down to uncheck the box next to “Show the Meet tab for video calling,” too, under the “Meet” header.

All that’s left is to breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Gmail Android feature No. 13: A speedy way to set an out-of-office responder

For years, the Gmail mobile app had no way to manage the service’s out-of-office vacation auto-responder. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who sometimes signs out ahead of a planned break and then realizes half an hour later I forgot to set my away message.

Well, fret no more, for at some point in the not-too-distant past, the Gmail Android app gained the ability to control the out-of-office responder. Yes, indeedly: You can just open up the app’s settings, tap the name of the account you want to modify, and then look for the “Vacation responder” option midway down the list of choices.

From there, it’ll take you a mere matter of moments to enable, configure, and edit your out-of-office auto-response to suit any situation imaginable.

JR

Gmail Android feature No. 14: More selective notifications

Email notifications can occasionally be helpful, but let’s be honest: They can also be pretty hellish. Give yourself a break from the noise by trying out the Gmail Android app’s high-priority notification option, which uses artificial intelligence and other impressive-sounding buzzwords to figure out which incoming messages are actually important to you — and then to notify you only about those emails.

To give it a whirl, venture once more into the Gmail app’s settings, select your Google account, tap the line labeled “Notifications,” and select “High priority only.” Give it a day and see what you think.

If you know exactly what types of emails you need to be notified about — say, those from a particular person or domain name, those with a specific word in their subjects or bodies, or those that are sent to a particular address of yours — you can skip the A.I. and just set up your own custom Gmail notifications. That’s what I do, and as long as you can figure out a consistent formula for what sorts of emails are notification-worthy to you, it works incredibly well.

Either way, you’ll have a lot less noise — and a lot more energy to deal with what really matters. Even if, y’know, “what really matters” is simply finding a few free minutes to eat a midmorning hoagie.

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