In this week's Tech 911 - the column where we offer reasonable answers and explanations for of your deepest, darkest tech confusions - a Lifehacker reader wonders why she can't access some of Gmail's best features with a third-party email client (and a non-Gmail address).

Sometimes things are just better said with a GIF, but adding a GIF to an email exchange is sometimes easier said than done. This week Gyfcat released a Gmail add-on that eliminates the hassle and makings adding GIFs to emails you send to everyone from your boss to your BFF easy to do.

All browsers: Google and Dropbox are now collaborating on a brand-new "Dropbox add-on for Gmail", which will make it easy to share the contents of your Dropbox directly within Gmail. If you're going the other way, it's also a lot easier to dump files directly into your Dropbox, saving you the step of having to pull up your Downloads folder and manually drag the file over yourself.

There are many reasons you might want to back up your Gmail account, such as: It’s good to have a copy of your most-important data; you’re about to be fired from your job and you want to save everything you did; you’d just like a little extra protection in case someone hacks your account and takes it over (or deletes it).

It will come as no surprise that, as the editor of a website devoted to productivity, I'm obsessive about refining the details of my tech life to be certain every element is helping me get the job done. While I have software that I swear by (WriteRoom, Deckset, Evernote), I'm more of an evangelist for browser extensions.

My favourite Chrome extensions are lightweight, easy-to-install and usually free, but the effect they have on my productivity is profound. These are the extensions that I love most fervently and recommend most frequently.

One of Gmail's cool new features is the "nudge", which moves certain emails to the top of your inbox and suggests you take action. This is actually two features: Gmail asks if you want to reply to received email and if you want to follow up on sent email.

To be honest, I'm not sure what different swipes do on your favourite email app, because every app is a little bit different. And it's possible that you don't like how your favourite email app handles swiping. Maybe you'd rather delete messages than archive them; maybe you just like swiping in one direction over another.

Google has a long history of introducing, then forgetting about, and finally officially killing off its products. Most recently, that included Google Spaces, a service that most of us never knew existed to begin with. Let's take a tour of some of our favourite services Google's killed off over the years.

Android: This week Google rolled out a new version of Gmail for Android, and along with it a new feature that allows you to customise what happens when you swipe right or left on a message from your inbox.

One of my long-time friends in the real world always gives me grief for "posting weird geek shit I don't understand" on Twitter. And yet it is he who now turns to Lifehacker with a query about an annoying experience he's having within Gmail.

A few weeks ago Google announced a host of updates and tweaks to Gmail, including the ability to read and respond to messages while you're offline. A number of the changes were made live then, but that offline mode wasn't quite ready. Last week during the company's annual developer conference, Google officially made offline mode available for Gmail users. Here's how to give it a try

Yesterday, our sister site Gizmodo posted a story about one of Gmail's new tools: Snoozing, the ability to put your emails to bed until you're well and ready to deal with them. It was described as a "terrible idea" but I'm here to tell you that Snoozing is one of my favourite features - if you use it appropriately.

Did you get the new Gmail update yet? (If not, see if there's a Try the new Gmail option on the web settings menu.) One of its major new features is the ability to snooze emails, something we've seen in various apps before. We're here to tell you why snoozing is bad, why you should avoid it, and what to do instead.

The new Gmail has landed and you can get it right now. You're likely very comfortable with Gmail's previous iteration, but the new one has a host of features that aims to make your digital postbox a lot more easy to manage.

Here's the new features you'll want to master.

iOS/Android: Google is rolling out a huge new update for its Gmail web app, and one of the most exciting features is the ability to snooze important emails. If you're a procrastinator like me, but you prefer checking your email on a smartphone, you aren't out of in luck. The Gmail apps for iOS and Android also recently added a snooze feature.

Google Tasks has been around for nearly 10 years. While digital to-do lists are great for keeping yourself organised, Google's attempt always felt like a half-effort. With no official mobile app, you had to turn to a third-party app to access your tasks from your smartphone or tablet, or you had to pull up the mobile version of Gmail on your favourite browser - as if.

Google have hit F5 on their Gmail inbox, redesigning the service for the first time in years. It's super easy to get involved right now and see what all the fuss is about.

Google has officially announced the new look that's coming to Gmail.com after images of its redesign leaked a few days prior. The revamp brings with it, besides a much-need paint job, some long-awaited features that users could only get through third-party email clients.

It's been speculated for some time that Google has been working on some updates for the web-based version of Gmail, and the company is officially moving from tease to truth with its announcement this week.