16 Tools That Will Change The Way You Use Gmail

Gmail is the world's largest email service, and has undoubtedly set the standard for what people expect in terms of ease of use and inbox size.

But that doesn't mean it can't be better.

There are a bunch of apps and plugins floating around the internet that can make your experience using Gmail much more enjoyable and productive.

With these add-ons, you can see when people are tracking your emails, automatically know everything about people who emailed you, send self-destructing emails, and so much more. You can leverage the power of GIFs and even use Gmail like you would WhatsApp.

Check out our list of 16 tools that will turn you into a Gmail pro

Sortd

Sortd is a smart skin for Gmail that transforms your inbox into a set of lists you can customize to fit your workflow. You can change the list names, add as many as you please, and reorder them at will.

Sortd is built around dragging and dropping, and tailoring your inbox to fit your needs is refreshingly simple.

Ugly Email

You may not know, but there are now email-tracking tools that make it easy for people to see when you open an email, what you click, and where you're located. To fight these, the Ugly Email Chrome extension shows you when your emails in Gmail are being tracked.

And it starts working before you click anything. Once Ugly Email is installed, a tiny little eye symbol appears next to any email in your inbox that's being tracked.

FullContact

This Chrome extension lets you see the social profiles and job titles of everyone who sends you emails. You can read through their tweets, check out their Instagram photos, and browse their Facebook updates.

You can even get detailed information on their organizations, like location, size, and demographics. It works with Google Calendar as well, in case you want to brush up before a meeting.

Mixmax

Mixmax is a Chrome extension that is full of useful nuggets. It makes scheduling meetings easy by letting people select times within the email itself, and at the same time tracks when someone has opened the message so you know when to bug them.

It also saves you time with the ability to both schedule emails to be sent later and create one-click email templates.

Mailburn

This iPhone app automatically shows you Gmail conversations with real people only. The theory is that you can take care of things like newsletters when you are at your computer, but that you don't want to miss an email from an actual person when you are on the go.

In the app, you see conversations as chats like in WhatsApp, without things like "Show quoted text."

Unsubscriber

Unsubscriber for Gmail is an iPhone app with one simple premise: easily allowing you to unsubscribe from mailing lists and newsletters. Simply swipe left to unsubscribe, or swipe right to keep your subscription. Then you can delete unsubscribed emails with a single tap.

MailTrack.io

MailTrack.io is a Chrome extension that lets you know both when your email was sent (with one check mark), and when it was opened (with two check marks). Not only that, but MailTrack.io can tell you when someone has read your email even if the email itself was sent to multiple recipients.

For those who want real-time notifications, MailTrack.io has an option to have pop-up desktop alerts when someone opens one of your emails.

Snapmail

Snapmail is a Chrome extension that adds a button next to Gmail's "send" button that you can use to send self-destructing messages. The button encrypts your message and only sends someone a link to it.

Once your recipient follows the link to the message, Snapmail informs them it will self-destruct in 60 seconds. And then it does. Right now, Snapmail only encrypts text content.

Gmail Offline

Gmail Offline lets you work in Gmail even when you have no internet connection. This is useful for when your connection is spotty, or you don't want to waste your data by tethering to your phone, but still want to draft some emails.