Google is rolling out a handful of changes to the way it handles labels in Gmail. First, labels are moving into the top left-side navigation area, right by your shortcuts for inbox, sent, starred, and other items. You can also choose to hide some labels while showing others.

Probably one of the biggest changes is that users will now be able to drag and drop messages into labels. In other words, you can sort your messages much the same way that you would add them to folders in almost any other webmail system.

Google is also removing the "right-side labels" feature from Gmail labs. The company says the new labels behavior makes it unnecessary. But try telling that to users who have gotten used to their labels hanging out in a sidebar on the right side of their screens.

The new features aren't showing up in my inbox yet, but Google has a way of rolling these kinds of changes out gradually to some groups of users before others. Have you noticed any changes to your Gmail interface? Let us know what you think in the comments.

If you have the ability to install software on your work computer, by far the easiest way to move files back and forth between your home and work computer would be a file synchronizing product like DropBox. But if you don't, what's the best way to move a relatively large file between two remote computers? For small files, email is usually the answer, and for users of Gmail that expands to files of up to 25 MB in size. But with what can often be a big catch: Gmail won't allow you to transfer executable files, even if they are inside a zip archive.

However, if you're simply wanting to move a file between computers, you can exploit the fact that Gmail doesn't actually scan a file to see if it is an executable until you actually try to send the email containing the file. This means that you are free to attach any file up to 25 MB in size to an email in Gmail, as long as you don't send it. You can then log into your Gmail on another computer, and download the attached file, without ever running into the executable file restriction.

Of course, the other easy way around Gmail's limitation is to change the file extension of the file you are sending. If you have an executable file inside a Zip archive, and you change the archive's file extension from .zip to .zzz, for example, Gmail doesn't know what a .zzz file is and does not scan it. Voila, you can now easily send executable files through Gmail.

Google wants to help you become a Gmail ninja, and has created a site called Gmail Tips for the purpose. What is a Gmail ninja? It's someone who knows all the ins and outs of the productivity tools that Gmail offers, and can process their email very quickly and efficiently.

Rather than just asking Gmail's team for a list of all of the features Gmail has, the Google Tips page is made up of tips from Google employees working in all different parts of the company. It's a hit list of the best email productivity ideas from the bright minds at Google.

The page is divided up into four sections: White belt, Green belt, Black belt, and Gmail master. Each of these sections describes a level of productivity tip, White belt being the most basic, and Gmail master being the guru-level tips.

Helpfully, the Gmail Tips page also includes a handy printable PDF that gives you one double-sided page full of all of the tips listed on the page.

Now, to be fair, none of the tips are going to be much of a surprise to heavy Gmail users, even the Gmail master level tips. But it's a great resource to point friends and co-workers to if they are struggling to really get the most out of Gmail, or if you're looking for a way to convince someone that Gmail is probably a better solution for them than what they are currently using.

Google's contact manager for Gmail has left a lot to be desired for a long time. For once thing, up until recently it didn't have fields for birth dates, web sites, or other information that might be stored in your other address books. But today Google added support for birthday and website information.

Now when you import contacts in CSV format from Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail, or Yahoo, or vCard format from OS X address book, the additional information should be copied over correctly. Google added these features to its standalone contact manager a while back, but the integration with Gmail is a welcome addition.

Of course, if you've already imported a few thousand contacts from your Outlook Address book, you're out of luck unless you want to delete all of your Gmail contacts and start again from scratch.

Gmail Mobile just received a couple of updates that bring it even closer to the full Gmail experience: keyboard shortcuts and faster autocompletion for contacts. When Google says "keyboard shortcuts," the emphasis is on the "keyboard" part. You'll need to have an Android phone with a physical keyboard, like the G1, to use them. If you do, Gmail on your phone now supports all the same shortcuts you can use in desktop Gmail, so you can navigate your mailboxes or jump to the next message with a single keypress.

Faster autocompletion can be used by Android and iPhone users alike. Autocompletion has been reported on some blogs as a new feature, but Google's own blog post suggests that addresses just complete faster now, thanks to caching of results from previous address book searches. This means that possible addresses should now come up as you type, making it even quicker than before to send a message from Gmail Mobile.

Gmail may have a simple look and feel, but there's a lot of JavaScript running behind the scenes. And that means that even if you're using Google's own web browser, it can take a while for Gmail to load properly. But what if you need to see what's in your inbox right now and you cannot possibly wait?

There's a new feature in Gmail Labs called Inbox Preview that will actually show you the 10 most recent message headers in your inbox while you're waiting for Gmail to fully load.

Honestly, I'm not sure how useful this feature is, since 90% of the time Gmail loads quickly enough for me that I would have to struggle to read even the first message header before it disappears. But if you have a slower system, maybe you'll find Inbox Preview more helpful.

To enable the feature, login to your Gmail account and click the little green bottle icon next to the settings link at the top of your screen. Then scroll down until you find Inbox Preview and click the enable button.

Google Operating System spotted some code in Gmail that points to an upcoming feature called "Magic Inbox" or "Icebox-Inbox." It's not clear what this mystery feature is going to do, but it looks like it's a new way of prioritizing your incoming mail based on senders you've interacted with frequently. Commenters at gOS have been attacking the feature based on speculation about how it might work, but I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

As evidence for their theory that Magic Inbox is based on some kind of friend priority algorithm, gOS cites a feature called Friend Finder that Google is known to be working on. They explain that "Friend Finder analyzes a user's email traffic and indicates the friends with whom a user has strong email connections based on incoming/outgoing traffic and the frequency and speed in which two parties respond to each other," which would be a good way to determine which messages belong at the top of a busy inbox.

As I said, I'm not jumping to conclusions about the exact way this is going to work. There already seems to be a strong reaction both for and against this feature, and we don't even know what it does yet. Any inside tips, readers? Do any anonymous Gmail team members out there want to tell the real story?

Google has a lot of different services under its roof. And sometimes it makes a lot of sense to combine them. For example, Google Docs is an online office suite. And people often send Office documents as email attachments. So it's kind of a no-brainer to let users open or preview PDF, DOC, and other file sent to their Gmail addresses.

Google also has a web-based language translator. It comes in handy if you're trying to read a news item on a web site in a language you don't speak. But I'm not sure I really need this feature in my email. I don't tend to correspond with people who speak languages that I can't understand via email. But maybe that's just me. Because Google just rolled out a new Gmail labs feature that lets you add a translation button to messages in your inbox in a foreign language.

I suppose there is one area where this could be useful. If you have a friend who speaks German as their first language, but who also speaks English, you may find yourself corresponding most frequently in English. But while he might be able to keep up with a little work, he may find it easier to hit the translate button. Unfortunately, computer translations are usually bad enough that even if his English isn't great, he may find them harder to understand after they're translated.

Facebook has taken steps in the past to promote sharing identities across different social networks, with its own Facebook Connect and its membership on the OpenID board, and it just took one more big leap by allowing Facebook logins via OpenID. If you have an OpenID from a provider like Google, you can now login automatically to Facebook. You can also register for Facebook using a Gmail account, which Facebook is hoping will boost its membership numbers.

According to the Developer Blog, users who register with OpenID are more likely to become active Facebook users. That means Facebook has every reason to support OpenID, even though it competes in some ways with Facebook Connect. The reason Facebook initially limited registration to workplaces and Universities was that those emails could fairly reliably verify a user's identity. It's nice to see that OpenID has achieved the same level of legitimacy.

It's pretty simple to set up your Gmail to forward to Yahoo!, Hotmail or whatever other email account you might have, but not all of your other email accounts have a way to export contacts and messages to Gmail. The Gmail team has taken matters into its own hands and added new import settings that make it easy to switch to Gmail.

Now you can bring your contacts and mail from Yahoo!, Hotmail, MSN, AOL and a bunch of others over to Gmail in a few steps, and have new mail from those accounts forwarded to Gmail for the next 30 days. That gives you time to let everyone know what your new address is. You can also label all of the imported mail, so you know which mail is coming from which account.

It seems like Gmail users are always hungry for new ways to tweak Gmail's appearance. One trick that will save some space in your sidebar is the Gmail Compactor script. If you have Greasemonkey or a similar userscript engine installed, just download Gmail Compactor to turn the text links in your sidebar into space-saving icons.

The icons aren't the only space-saving feature of Gmail compactor, though. It alos shrinks Gmail's built-in search bar down into the sidebar, and eliminates the Gmail logo. It's up to you whether you think this look feels less cluttered. It does offer the same functions in a smaller space, but the icons also feel a bit a crowded to me compared to the text links, and they take some getting used to.

[via Lifehacker]

Yahoo! has released a desktop email and personal information management client called Zimbra Desktop. It's based on the Zimbra email, calendar, and contact service that Yahoo! purchased a few years ago for $350 million. And that explains why the desktop client looks so much like the latest version of Yahoo!'s web based email service.

The interesting thing is that Zimbra Desktop doesn't just provide access to your Yahoo! email account. You can also link it to your Gmail, AOL, Windows Live, or other web mail accounts. It supports POP and IMAP as well. If you're using a tag-based email service like Gmail, Zimbra Desktop will import your labels and treat them like folders. But you can also use the email client to tag, sort, or search for messages on your desktop.

Zimbra is an open source application and it's available for Mac, Windows and Linux. Not only does it have an integrated calendar and contact solution, but it can also import your calendars and contact lists from Yahoo! and Gmail. Windows Live address books can also be imported, but not the calendar.

Personally, I haven't felt much need to use a desktop email client for the past few years. Web mail is accessible from any computer with a web browser, as well as mobile devices. And you don't need to configure any software to get it working. But if you're a fan of desktop email clients, you might want to give Zimbra Desktop a look. It's free, after all.

Google is bringing some of the online office technology of Google Docs to Gmail. The company added the ability to view PDF documents attached to Gmail with an online document viewer a few months ago. Now Gmail also has document viewers for PowerPoint and TIFF files.

Actually, Gmail users have been able to view PowerPoint files as slideshows for a while. But now you can view presentations using a fuller featured web interface. The new viewer makes it easier to skip pages, change the image size, and change the page layout of presentations.

The TIFF viewer works much the same way, making it easier to see multi-page TIFF images sent to your Gmail address.

There's a new experimental feature in Gmail labs that you probably didn't know you needed until it existed. OK, you still probably don't *need* it, but it's a great example of how a service like Gmail can take the information it automatically gathers about your behavior and use it to make the simple act of sending an email easier.

Here's how it works. If you enable the "Suggest more recipients" option in Gmail Labs (which you can find by clicking the green test tube icon in the Gmail menu), Gmail will attempt to suggest people in your contact lists you might want to add to group emails. For example, if you have five friends that you frequently forward pictures of cute puppies to, the next time you enter two of their names, a menu should pop up suggesting you also include the other three contacts on your email.

You'll need to enter at least two names before the suggestion feature kicks in. And it only works if you've regularly sent emails to groups of people. If you enter the names of two people who you've never sent group messages to before, no suggestions will appear.