Steve Dotto here.
Today, we are going to take a look at the dawning of a new era for Gmail.
Is it really?
Well, it is a significant upgrade that they have added to the service just in the last
little while just by allowing us start to integrate Gmail with Google Drive.
Google Drive, of course, is the online storage system.
The biggest feature is now the ability to include massive attachments in our emails.
In the past, we’ve had all these workarounds in order to send large files.
We’ve used tools like Dropbox and other online services in order for us to store and
then forward large files.
We weren’t able to embed them right within the body of an email making it that much more
convenient.
Well, that has changed with the new release of some capabilities within Gmail.
Let’s take a look back at the way things were.
Let’s see when we try and compose or send a larger attachment with the current version
of Gmail and with, indeed with many, many different email solutions that we have out
there.
I’m going to compose a new message and I have a large file that I want to send.
I try and attach that file and in my case here it’s a 70MB file.
Really by today’s standards, that’s not that huge.
We have lots of different videos, audio files, and graphics that are that large but it says,
uh-oh, there’s an error, “This file exceeds the 25MB attachment limit,” and then they
apologize, sorry.
Well, I’m sorry too but they don’t need to apologize much anymore because there now
is a better way.
So here’s how you actually go about using the new larger attachment size limits within
Gmail.
The first thing we need to do is we need to enable the new compose window.
Now what has happened is Google has changed the way or changed the interface for composing
emails theoretically to make it easier but also to add this new feature.
So it’s easy to do.
When you go in and compose a new email, click on ‘Compose.’
Right here, just on the top bar it says, “Try out the new compose experience.”
We need to click on that and then that will launch us into the new compose window and
the new structure.
So it will go right back into our inbox and now what it’s going to do is it’s going
to walk us through a little bit of a tutorial on using the new compose window.
So you click your way through the tutorial.
Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to start using the new compose window.
Now one of the first things that you will notice with the new compose window is it appears
and pops into the bottom corner of your web browser screen.
Now you might wonder why it’s doing that instead of starting a whole new screen.
Well the main reason, as far as I’m concerned, it is typically speaking, when we’re writing
an email, we’re responding to something which has already come before.
We’re not often creating or we’re not usually creating something new.
So here we can still see the existing email in the window so that we can comment.
It makes it a little bit easier from that perspective to have context as we write.
If you don’t like this option, you just click on the arrow and it pops it up to the
center of the screen.
Now they’ve got some other nice little features.
They have a little bit better integration with your calendar with your contacts and
other things.
The main differences that you’ll find are down here in the very bottom.
This is where you’ve got additional options added to this compose window.
Of course, what we are talking about today is attaching a file.
So if I just click on Attach file, I should be able to select that great large file--shouldn’t
I?—open it up, and now it should put that 70 GB file and whoa, wait a minute.
It didn’t do it.
That’s because the attachment limit is still the same.
We’re not going to be using the classic attachment way.
It says you’re trying to send a 25MB file—too large—but look at the new option, “Send
it instead using Google Drive.”
Ah, that is the magic.
Let me close this down.
Instead I’ll go into it by just clicking on the Google Drive icon here in my pop-out
and that allows me to now start adding attachments with Google Drive, a little more control.
So here I’ve got the ability to upload files, if I haven’t already uploaded them from
my computer into my Google Drive, which will then allow me to share them.
Now I’ve already uploaded that file and if you want to upload one, you can navigate
as well through a dialog box but you can also just drag and drop and then it will upload
it.
A file like this one, 70 MB, it’s going to take as long as your Internet connection
takes.
But here’s my drive, I’ve already got this new big file uploaded so I’m going
to insert that now into an email.
Now it inserts here as an attachment.
I’m just going to send this to myself because it’s really not for anybody else.
There we go.
Here’s the next kind of cool thing that happens.
When I click send with this, I get a new dialog box, “This drive isn’t shared with that
recipient,” so I’m sending it to somebody new.
Now how do you want to share this file?
Anyone can view it, anyone can comment, or anyone can edit it.
You have these options.
You have the same basic file sharing options as you have within Google Drive but now those
settings are embedded as it goes out by email.
There are even more options.
You can choose only people who have a Google Account.
If you choose that, you have the same options available to you.
Now why do you want to have these options at this point here?
Well sometimes, not necessarily when we’re sending a movie like I am but if you’re
sending a shared document that you’re working on, you want to be able to let people read
it and you might want people to be able to collaborate and work on it with you.
So that sets all of those different permissions.
But now you even have more control because once you set these permissions here and you
send it out saying anybody can edit it, once they’ve done that if you allowed them to
edit it then a little while later once you want to lock the document down and not let
anybody edit it anymore, you can go back into your Google Drive, you can go into the document
itself, in this case this particular document, and you can change this sharing settings by
clicking on the Share button here.
That allows you to change the sharing that’s setup for anybody who has it.
So you can later on revoke or enable permissions based on your sharing of the files.
It gives you a lot of flexibility as far as doing collaboration and sharing different
documents.
Let’s go back into the editor for just a moment.
That’s one of the interesting things with this.
This mail window seems to pop-out after and it might get hidden.
That’s one of the reasons you might want to leave it attached to the bottom.
I know what I wanted to show you.
There are some additional features down here and this is the one that I like the most.
It’s the ability to send an invitation or a calendar item right from within the email,
not having to go into the calendar in order to invite people to a meeting or anything
like that.
It’s a really nice feature that I like a lot within the new interface within Gmail.
But if you’re not like me, if you don’t like this new interface, you just click down
on this button here and you can actually go back to the old compose system.
You can do things the old way if you choose.
Gmail, for a lot of people, is becoming their main email interface and every time they add
another layer of features, another group of people say “Hey, this is the best way for
me to use and to do my email.”
I think this last addition with the large attachment size and the slightly new interface
is a step in the right direction.
I hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful.
If you have, give us a like, give us some props.
Don’t forget you can subscribe to all of our videos here at Dotto Tech.
I’m Steve Dotto.
Thanks for spending time with me today.
[END OF AUDIO] Steve Dotto0Gmail Facelift0December 8, 2012
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