#174 -- GMail now supports different outgoing email addresses. Click on Settings (upper right-hand corner) then Accounts (second tab from the left) and choose “Add another email address” below your name. When you add an address, you will have to verify that it is indeed yours by entering the code the system sends you immediately. This protects against people making up addresses for spamming purposes or against people trying to impersonate others. You can also specify a different reply-to address for each of the addresses you set up.

#206 -- Although Gmail doesn't provide a built-in feature to create group lists, Lifehacker provides a workaround: Click on Contacts (left-side menu) and choose Add Contact (top right corner). Enter a name for the group in the Name field. Then in the Primary Email field start inputting the addresses of group members. Here is the trick: leave out the first and last brackets. This is how you should do it (substituting the appropriate email addresses):

Then Save the address. Once you save it, you can see that GMail puts a bracket around the list of addresses. You can try it out by clicking on Compose. Next time you want to send a note to this group, just start typing in the group name and the address list will come up as an option.

#216 -- If you'd like your outgoing Gmail messages to display another one of your email addresses in the 'From:' field (instead of your Gmail address), just follow these easy steps:

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click 'Settings' along the top of any page, and then select the 'Accounts' tab.
3. Click 'Add another email address' in the 'Send mail as:' section.
4. Enter your full name in the 'Name:' field, and the email address you'd like to send messages from in the 'Email address:' field.
5. Click 'Next Step >>,' and then click 'Send Verification' to complete the process. Gmail will send a verification message to your other email address to confirm that you'd like to add it to your Gmail account. You'll need to click the link in that message, or enter the confirmation code in the 'Accounts' section of your Gmail account, to complete the process. Once you've verified that you'd like to add the address to your account, you can start sending messages using your custom 'From:' address.

Once you have that set up, you can use this Greasemonkey script in Firefox to change the email accounts from the "From:" line.

#220 -- GmailThis! is an easy way to make a Gmail email without visiting mail.google.com. Once you add the GmailThis! link to your browser's toolbar, clicking GmailThis! creates a mini-interface to Gmail prepopulated with a link to the web page you are visiting, as well as any text you have highlighted on that page. Add additional text if you wish and then email or save as draft from within GmailThis! An indispensible tool.

Verizon: 10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
AT&T: 10digitphonenumber@mobile.att.net
Sprint: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Nextel: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Cingular: 10digitphonenumber@mobile.mycingular.com
Virgin Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com
Alltel: 10digitphonenumber@alltelmessage.com OR message.alltel.com
CellularOne: 10digitphonenumber@mobile.celloneusa.com
Omnipoint: 10digitphonenumber@omnipointpcs.com
Qwest: 10digitphonenumber@qwestmp.com

The Republic of Geektronica blog explains how to set up filters so that you can decide which emails to have sent to your phone.

#271 -- One little known feature of Gmail (and other email systems) is plus addressing. Gmail will ignore anything in the first half of an email address after a plus sign so joe.p.carter+send_to_trash@gmail.com is treated in exactly the same way as joe.p.carter@gmail.com. You can put anything after the plus sign except for a space or an at (@) sign, and it will always get delivered to your Inbox. Plus Addressing is remarkably useful, as it enables you to set up filters for your incoming mail. In order to set up filters, click the "Create a filter" link to the right of the search bar. Copy the address into the To: box, and click on the Next Step button. A filter can move, star, directly archive, label, forward, and trash any message that triggers it. Select the actions you want, and click on the Create Filter button.

Because Plus Addressing effectively gives you an unlimited number of email addresses to the same Gmail inbox, it allows you to assign one to each mailing list, website, and so on that you subscribe to. You can also use it to track which email addresses have been sold to spammers, and send those to Trash automatically.

#296 -- Using Google’s Gmail notifier, you can make Gmail your default mail client, which means it will open a Compose window when you click on a web page email link. Download and install the free Gmail notifier. In Windows, right-click the Notifier icon in your system tray, and select ‘Options.’ Then check the box next to ‘Use Gmail for internet mailto: links’ and click ‘OK.’ Now when you need to compose an email just use the shortcut Ctrl+M to open Gmail's compose function.

#306 -- Online bookmarking systems such as Furl and del.icio.us have become a popular way to keep track of the interesting pages you find on the net. But if you're like me and prefer to have one system to handle as many applications as possible you'll want to checkout the tutorial on how to set up Gmail as a personal bookmarking tool. For several months I've used this method to save the links I find for my Outtakes and YSR features and have found that Gmail's search function makes this a particualarly useful filing system.

#320 Gmail Hack -- Using your Gmail account you can convert files (doc, xls, ppt, rtf, pdf, etc.) to HTML. Simply compose a message, attach the file, and send it to yourself. Open the message and click the "View as HTML" link next to your attachment. The contents of your attachment appear as HTML in a new browser window without having to download the file. GMail will show the following types of files as HTML: .pdf, .doc, .xls, .ppt, .rtf, .sxw, .sxc, .sxi, .sdw, .sdc, .sdd, and .wml. You can extend this trick to extract text from PDF documents (PDF to Txt) or Convert Adobe PDF documents to Word (PDF to Doc conversion). First convert the Document to HTML with Gmail and then open the HTML file in Microsoft Word and choose Save as .doc. (HT: Digital Inspiration)

See also: The Yak Shaving Razor Archives. New additions to YSR are added each Wednesday.