Turning Your GMail Email Account into Online Storage!

Google's mail service, or GMail, has become a large entity in the free email service department. The days of using Yahoo or Hotmail are almost gone. A majority of my friends have switched over to GMail and deactivated their Hotmail accounts. It's always nice to centralize your online needs in one location and google seems to be good at it. However, who do you know has actually used up all that email storage space that GMail offers? Currently I am using .025 GB out of 7.3 GB of email storage space. That is essentially a 7 GB flash drive begging to be used!

Though this is NOT an official Google program, it is extremely handy when you need your files on the go, wherever you go (online).

So here is how you use your space:

I was going to have some nice pictures showing exactly how to do this, but it is really an easy install!

1) Create a new email account for your online GMail hard drive.
Example: your-regular-email-name-and.drive@gmail.com

2) Download (Save) the program here: DOWNLOAD

3) Unzip and run the program. You may have to reboot your machine.

4) Go to My Computer and Open your GMail drive.

5) Enter your user name, password and check auto log in. You can always change that later.

6) Now drag and drop a file and watch your new online hard drive take action like action has never been taken before!... <---- What? Congratulations! You can now use your 7 GB of online storage space! This is great for group work projects or even for files that you just have to have anywhere you go (with Internet of course)!

Here are some words of caution before you journey into this dark and wondrous forest:

1) Though gmailfs may work now, GMail may disable this feature in the future. You can always download your files as attachments from your GMail account if needed. Before you do all that troublesome pointing and clicking, look for a new version of gmailfs online; they may have fixed the problem.

2) Try not to put personal files that can be used for identity theft on your GMail Drive.

3) Always copy the file from your GMail Drive before editing them! If you do not, you may lose the file in your Temp folder... never to be seen again...

4) Your file size limit is about 10 MB (similar to attachments), but it can vary.

5) Do NOT make folders in folders in folders! You can't make your file directory structure too large! One MAYBE two folders within a folder is as far as you want to go, otherwise it won't work.

6) You cannot Rename your files from the GMail Drive, but you can do "everything else."

You have been warned!!! Woo ha ha!

Enjoy!

Set Up Gmail As Your Default Mail Application (MAC or PC)

Have you ever clicked on a "contact us" link and your Microsoft mail application starts up only to tell you that you haven't set up your email account. That is probably because you don't use Microsoft. Shortly thereafter you think, "Aaagh, I wish gmail will just load." Well here is how to do that (on a MAC or PC)!

First follow this link and download the Gmail Notifer...
I know, now you're thinking there is going to be another start up program in your tray... but don't worry, we'll fix that.

Next, run the program and uncheck the "Run on startup" box:



Then enter your password:

Finally, right click the mail icon at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and click exit:

That is it! Now go find all the Mailto: links you can find and be amazed!

Note: The gmail app will log on to whoever used gmail last. So if you have more than one gmail account, make sure you are sending it from the right account! This can be done by visiting mail.google.com and noting what account shows up.

For Mac users it is very similar:

1) Download the Google Notifier and run it.
2) Go to Preferences by Click the Mail icon on the Menu bar
3) Select the Gmail tab
4)Uncheck the "Start on Login" and "Display Message Count" option, and choose Gmail as the program from the "Default Email Program" drop-down menu.
5) Enjoy the convenience of Gmail as your default app!