There are many features hidden in Gmail that common user does not realize about its importance. Using these features, you can easily work on  most of the common tasks you perform on Gmail. Even users using Gmail since years do not know some of the important tips hidden in Gmail, some of them might be simple but effective while some of the tips are complex but useful.

1) Changing the Time Zone of your Gmail:

You might experience that many of the incoming mail do not show exact time or may not match with the time of your watch. This is mainly because your Gmail account is associated with different time zone. To match the data and time of the incoming mails with your time then you should change the time zone in your Gmail account. Process to change time zone in Gmail account:

• Click on the settings link present at the top right hand corner in the Gmail browser and select the Accounts tab in the settings option.
• In the Google Account settings column click on the Google Account settings link,  your Google Accounts window opens.
• In that under profile click on edit your personal info and in the following page select your country and time zone from the drop-down menu.
• If the time zone is not, there in the drop-down menu then click show all time zones.
• Now click save your time as been changed and all the mails will show the time according to the time zone you have selected.

2) Mouse Gestures

This feature enable you to move to the next and previous conversation with a click and move of your mouse. To go to the next converstion in your inbox just press and hold the right click and move the mouse to right and to view the previous conversation move the mouse to left. By holding the right click and moving the mouse up you can directly view the inbox. To enable this feature in your gmail account:

• Click on the Labs icon that is present at the top right hand corner in the Gmail browser window.
• Scroll down untill you see the Mouse gesture option.
• In that you click on the Enable next to the mouse gestures feature
• And click on the save changes button that is present at the bottom of the page to activate this feature. 

3) Changing Keyboard Shortcuts or give your own keyboard shortcuts:

If you are facing problems using keyboard shortcuts or it is difficult for you to remember the key combination no worries you can change keyboard shortcuts for Gmail according to your convenience.

• Click on the settings link on the top right hand corner in the Gmail browser
• Click in the Labs tab in the settings option
• In the Custom Keyboard shortcuts select Enable
• Now click on the Save button
• Again repeat the first two steps
• Now in the keyboard shortcuts click on the Edit link
• In this you can edit the shortcuts use “” along with the corresponding decimal ASCII code to assign non-printable characters like ESC and DEL.
• Click on save to save the changes in Gmail.

4) Export Gmail Contacts to Desktop application:

If you want to add all the Gmail contacts to your desktop email application like Outlook, you can do it very easily.

• Click on Contacts that is present towards left hand side in the Gmail browser
• Click on the Export link present at the right hand corner in the My contacts
• In What format would you like to export to option select Outlook CSV format to export contacts into Outlook.
• Click on the Export Contacts
• A Downloading dialog box pops up and save the file onto the desktop.

5) Auto Forward your Gmail Emails to another Email client

If you are not having access to Gmail from your work place and still want to view email in Gmail then you can set Gmail to forward all incoming Email to another Email client that you can access from your work place.

• Click on the settings link on the top right hand corner in the Gmail browser

• Click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab in the settings option
• In the forwarding Column select Forward a copy of incoming mail to
• Type the Email address to which you want to forward the mails to
• In the drop-down menu you can select an option Keep Gmail’s copy in Inbox or archive Gmail’s copy to remove it from the inbox or delete Gmail’s copy to remove the mail after forwarding.
• Click on save changes all the incoming mails will be forwarded to the Email address you have given via your Gmail account.