Gmail Canned Responses
The one great thing about the development team at Google is their ability to create extremely useful add-on’s for Gmail. The bad thing is very few people know these great tools are available or they are not exactly sure how to use them. Well, look no further! We are now going to venture down the road I like to call “The Google Labs Experience”. Each week we will cover a new Labs tool inside of Gmail and show you how to use it in a productive way. Or as best we can anyway.
First up, Canned Responses. This is a great tool if you need to send the same email out many times to a multitude of different people. This tool works exceptional well if you are doing a lot of customer support. So let’s dig in!
You need to active this Lab feature in order to use it. Out of the box, Gmail has a few great tools, but the really cool ones are tucked away deep inside of Labs. To get to Labs, do the following:
- Open Gmail
- Go to your “Settings” link in the upper right hand corner of the browser
- Click the “Labs” link near the end of the navigation in “Settings”
Next scroll about half way down the page till you see the Canned Responses.
- Click the “Enable” radio button.
- Scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”
Go back to your Inbox and click “Compose Mail. You will see you have a new text link directly to the right of the “Attach a file” link called “Canned responses”.
You will notice when you click the drop down arrow, it says “Save” and “New canned response”.
To add a canned response, type in the message you want to save or cut and paste the text from another text file. Once you have that done, click the drop down from the “Canned response” link and click “New canned response”. You will then be prompted to name your canned response, something like, “Where to send new application”. Click “Ok”.
Click the drop down again and you will now see your new canned response. Now, the next time you need to compose an email and need to use a canned response, just pick from the drop down of canned responses and WALLA!!! Fast and efficient!
If you want to see more detail, check out my YouTube video below. I would love to get your feedback. Please let me know what you think or let me know if there is a tool you would like done. I’m on it!
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Google Labs consists of a large number of tiny applications that you can use to personalize your Gmail. There are quite a few that are also are fun and (watch out) MIGHT cause Productivity! I LOVE Google Labs! If you have not yet checked it out yet, just go to the “Settings” tab after you’ve logged in to your Gmail – all of the labs are there!
I personally use Canned Responses and love it, as I send mass emails frequently (not to spam), but to pass along some of my “cool finds” on the web. I also love (and personally use) Pictures in Chat, Gestures (which sure as heck saves a LOT of ‘click-time.’) Google Docs is VERY neat – you can share and collaborate on word-type documents and spreadsheets with anyone online,…this is awesome for those who make a living working online. I have used and tried almost all of their labs. Some may not suit your needs exactly, others you will ask yourself “Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?”
Check out the “Custom Label Colors” in Google Labs too – that’s one of my FAVS!