Gmail Google Search Box Inserts Links Without Clicking Away
So often, writing an email involves opening a new tab to look up something, copying the link, then heading back to paste it. Gmail’s latest Labs feature consolidates that process with pop-up Google searches.
Once you enable the Google Search feature in Gmail’s Labs menu, you’ll see a new Google Search bar in Gmail’s left-hand sidebar. Depending on whether you’re in the inbox, writing a new mail, or replying to someone else’s message, what happens after you type your search and hit enter varies a little bit, but it’s all meant to help you search and insert direct links and search result references in your emails.
So, for example, when you’re composing a new email, searching from the left-side box will pop up a window just like a chat message with the first few results. Hover over the bottom-right of any result, and a drop-down menu lets you paste that result’s direct URL (instead of the common Google click-tracking gobbledy-gook), paste a link to the Google search results page, or pop open a new message with that link auto-inserted. Search from the inbox, and you can start a new message with a search result.
Pretty neat stuff, and pretty handy in certain cases, too. Gmail’s making it easier and easier to do more and more from a single browser window.
Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Google Search right in Gmail [via TechCrunch]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
This is so cool. With every passing day, I see less and less need to go with a desktop email client. The gmail web browser with offline access is leaps and bounds ahead of everything else.
gpzbc
@[justfuckinggoogleit.com]
jarhead
It always fascinates me that the big G rolls these new features in English first, then other languages as the mood strikes. This was true of Labs itself, and has been true of many individual Labs and other Gmail features.
Anyone using a non-English Gmail version who can use this feature yet?
celcinc
Gmail is so much better than any other mail service its ridiculous
WOW...this is sweet!
achoke
I guess you all are more polite than I am. When I help friends with tech issues, my first email is almost always just two words:
Google it.
My clearest ever experience of LH teaching me something I just needed. Yesterday I wrote a friend an email to help them with a malware problem and I must have tabbed over to Google three times to find links to Spybot, Avira and a firewall. This is awesome!
Jason
This I will be using frequently.
So good.
@joelena: Unfortunately, rather than just pasting the link into your chat window, it immediately sends the link along with the site description/snippet.
It also works in chat! If you have a chat window open, it gives you an option to send the link to your current chat recipient.
href="#c12506864">powaking: It was listed in Lifehacker's ""Remains of the Day" yesterday, so yes, it's new.@
@powaking:
Pretty sure it's recent, newer than inline images.
Confuzius
this is amazing!! awesome. I will be using it very often.
UrianFonzie
Just noticed the Extra Emoji icons option in Labs. Is this new or old? Don't remember seeing it in there
powaking
Looks like they're trying to compete with Hotmail's genius "quick add" search feature?
NovaDemophon
They are going to be big these Google guys, I can feel it.....
AnnunziataGiant
Wow, I could've used that guide a long time ago. I just had a drive fail, and after reinstalling Windows, Windows update wouldn't work.
Rett Gerst
@celcinc: Not so fascinating. Consider where they're based.
paintbox
I think this is the more bs side of Lifehacker rearing its head. This kind of tool may be fun for the sender to play with. But it's not so great for the recipient if the links you send haven't been read over first. You don't just send people links, if you send help links at all-- you first make sure the link holds content that the receiver can use. Otherwise you're just fapping on whatever geek power you think you have, and not doing any quality control on what gets send to whomever is asking for your help.
Click on the links yourself first, read over what they hold, THEN send them along. Don't just fire off lists of google results because they happen to match a search query.
paintbox
This my friends IS the Google Operating System in action :). @paintbox - The new gmail tool in question does open any clicked links in a new tab for just that purpose. I think the common use here is not to send someone a link that you have never read, but to quickly find a URL that you have read before and are just trying to "remember" with Google's help.
YamkaSaffron