Wed 13 Aug 2008
Gmail/Google Apps Tips, Tricks & Tweaks
Posted by Andrew Mitry under Google
[4] Comments
We recently migrated our church staff from Exchange 2003 to Google Apps (link to howto from last years school migration), here are a few things I am sending out to help ease the transition.
Google Apps Help Center – Index to all of the help documentation for Google Apps services.
Browser
- Firefox 3 seems to deliver the best experience with Gmail and the rest of the Google Apps.
- Better Gmail 2 is a Firefox add-on that adds useful extra features such as hierarchical labels, macros, file attachment icons, and more.
- Drag and drop file uploads with the dragdropupload add-on.
- Giving the various Google Apps more of a desktop feel using Prism, a site specific browser that runs on the same engine as Firefox. Unfortunately no add-on support is available yet.
- Lifehacker: Hack Attack: Become a Gmail master
- Learning Google’s Keyboard Shortcuts, full list for Gmail here.
Docs
- Using Syncplicity to sync folders with Google Docs and vice versa.
- 10 Ways to Use the New Google Docs Productively
Mobile
- NuevaSync allows for contacts/calendar sync via emulated (I’m guessing) Exchange ActiveSync for iPhone and Windows Mobile. Using IMAP for email.
- GooSync for contacts/calendar sync on Palm OS devices.
- Mobile web and Java interfaces to the various Google Apps.
Offline
- Outlook IMAP and OggSync for contacts/calendar sync.
- Gmail IMAP and Thunderbird
- Search Through Your Gmail Offline With Google Desktop Search
- Google Docs Offline
- Gmail and Google Calendar to Add Offline Support – Google should release this in the next couple of weeks.


August 13th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Thank you! We too recently migrated to Google Apps, and we’ve not looked back.
I didn’t know about syncplicity, I’m going to check that out right now!
God bless!!!
August 13th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Excellent list! Thanks for compiling this. A few of these items are familiar but others are very new! So this will be quite helpful.
I do wish Prism had plug-in support. That would be killer.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Great information! Thanks : )
August 26th, 2008 at 8:31 am
This is a fantastic list, and we’ve really started to consider making the switch, but I have one question that I don’t see addressed. Will making this switch cause us to loose the ability for an admin. Assist. To see free/busy time, and schedule events in their bosses calendar?