Have you ever missed an important message because it got lost down the page on one of those days when you received a flurry of email? It happens to the best of us! To prevent this from happening, I like to separate my inbox into two sections. I like all of my unread email to rise to the top and then have everything else underneath. Gmail will do this for me with just one simple setting.

To turn on this lovely feature, put your mouse over the word "Inbox" in the left side navigation panel and click on the little downward arrow icon that appears just to the right of the word. Then choose "Unread first".

Now Google will take all of your unread emails and place them in a special section at the top of your inbox. It will make it very difficult to accidentally miss a message.

Undo Send allows you to have a few seconds after you hit "Send", to change your mind. It will put a little "Undo" option at the top of your inbox when it notifies you that your message has been sent. It doesn't actually recall your message, it just adds a delay between the moment you hit "Send" and the moment the email actually gets sent. During this delay window is when you have the option to click "Undo" and prevent the message from getting sent.

To turn on the undo send feature, click on the gear in the upper right corner of your inbox and select "Settings" from the menu. Scroll down until you see the "Undo Send" section. You can click the box to enable the feature and then use the drop down to choose how long after you hit "Send" you'd like to have the option to undo. You can choose 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save Changes" before you return to your inbox.

Choosing a theme lets you pick a solid color or image as the background for your inbox. It allows you to have some fun with how you'd like your screen to look and gives you a great way to tell your gmail accounts apart at a quick glance.

To change your theme, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of your inbox and select "Themes" from the menu. This will bring you to a window that allows you to choose from a variety of themes. If you'd like to upload your own image to use, look for the "My Photos" button in the bottom right corner of the theme selection window.

Gmail Labs are experimental features that are not quite ready to put into full production. They can be really useful!

To get to the Labs section, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of your inbox and choose "Settings" from the menu. Then click on the "Labs" section across the top of the page.

To find a lab, scroll down through the list of popular labs or search for one in the search window. When you find one you'd like to enable, you can simply click the bubble next to enable and then click on the "Save changes" button on the top or bottom of the page. Your enabled labs will show at the top of the list.

Some labs that you might find useful are:

• Multiple Inboxes - Multiple Inboxes allows you to section of a part of your inbox screen for certain emails, like emails from a certain person or emails belonging to one of your labels. It is pretty handy! I have a label called Follow Up and I have used Multiple Inboxes to make a list of emails in my inbox that I need to follow up with. You can click here to see a little video explaining how to install Multiple Inboxes and use it as a to do list! (It is one of my very first video tutorials from my early days, so it isn't perfect, but it shows you exactly how to set it up.)
• Canned Responses - Find yourself sending the same emails over and over again? Save time with canned responses! Click here to view an image that helps show you how to use this handy lab.
• Google Calendar Gadget - This will put a little window in the left side navigation panel of your inbox that shows a list of your upcoming calendar events. Once you enable it, you may have to click the little three dots menu that appears in the bottom right corner of the left side navigation panel in order to see your calendar events.
• Preview Pane - This lab puts a preview pane on your inbox screen so you can read the whole email without leaving your inbox list. It feels very much like the preview pane we all loved in Microsoft Outlook.
• Unread Message Icon - Now you can have a little number on the Gmail icon that shows in the top of your Chrome tab. You can be browsing on another tab and still see how many unread emails you have.

Cynthia discusses this very thing in her Episode 2 topic. Filtering messages helps with Gmail organization and allows you to create rules about what should happen to certain emails in your mailbox. The best thing is, once you set up a filter, this will happen automatically - you don't have to do anything!

Check the detailed resources above for more information.

Labels are like folders that help you organize your mail, only better! The reason labels are better than folders, is because you can apply more than one label to an email. You can create labels for anything you want.

You can also drag an email from the inbox list directly to a label name in the left side navigation panel. This will remove your email from the inbox list and place it under that label (you can still find it in searches and in the "All mail" list). If you click the label name in the left side navigation panel, it will show you all the emails you have labeled with that name.

Filters allow you to create rules about what should happen to certain emails in your mailbox. The best thing is, once you set up a filter, this will happen automatically - you don't have to do anything.

Filters are created for a variety of reasons. It could be because of the sender, the recipient, certain keywords in the body or subject of the email, a combination of these factors, etc.

That's it! Now your filter is created and you can sit back and know that Gmail will filter your messages automatically.