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Introduction to Gmail Flipbook PDF
Hired Digital Literacy Series Gmail
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Hired Digital Literacy Series: Introduction to Gmail
Created by Olivia Sauer & SPNN Page 1
Table of Contents: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..3 Creating a Gmail Account………………………………………………………………….…………………………3 Logging Out of Gmail………………………………………….………………………………….……………...…..4 Accessing Your Gmail………………………………………………………………………………………………....4 Sending Basic Emails…………………………………………………………...…………….……………………….5 Responding to an Email………………………………………………….……………..…………………………….6 Advanced Email Settings………………………………………………………………………………….............7 Attachments……………………………………………………………………………..………………...........…….8 Organizing Your Inbox……………………………………………………………...………………...…………….10 More Resources………………………………………………………………………………………………………...11
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Introduction Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. A Gmail account allows you to send and receive emails, block spam emails, create an address book, and other basic email features from any device with an internet connection. A Gmail account also gives you free access to Google Drive cloud storage and G Suite applications like Docs and Sheets. We’ll talk more about Google Drive and the G Suite in a separate guide.
Creating a Gmail Account Before you create your Gmail account, think about a professional and unique email address. A simple format is some combination of your first and last name or initials. Have a couple different possible choices in case someone else has already chosen that name. It is common to add a two-digit number to the end of your email address if the name you want is not available. Now that you have a few options in mind, follow the steps below. 1. Click this link to get started: Create your Gmail Account. 2. Enter your first and last name and one of the usernames you’ve already thought of. 3. Finally, type in a strong password and then confirm that password. Don’t forget your password! 4. Google will walk you through a few more steps and introduce some features of your new account. You will also have an option to upload a photo that will appear next to your name when people receive an email from you.
5. If you have any issues, visit Google Support. Enter your first and last names here
Type your password here and then confirm it
Enter your username here
Click Next to continue
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Logging Out of Gmail 1. Click on the circle at the top right of your email inbox, this window will appear. 2. Click “sign out” at the bottom of that window.
Accessing Your Gmail 1. Open a web browser and go to www.gmail.com. You can do this on any computer with an internet connection. 2. Enter your username and password, then click the blue “Next” button. 3. You will see the window below. Take a moment and get familiar with this view.
Start a new email
Search your mail here
Access Google Apps Settings
Primary inbox
Number of unread emails
Unread emails
Check box
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Sending Basic Emails 1. To send an email, click the “Compose” button in the upper left corner of the screen. You will see this window:
Type the email of you want to contact Copy and blind copy
Choose a subject line
Type your email here
2. After the New Message window appears, click in the “To” field and type the email address of the
recipient. If you want to send one email to multiple people, type the first email address, then type a comma and a space, then the next email, and so on. To Copy a person on an email, which means to include someone who is not the direct recipient, click the Cc Bcc button. Emails address in the Cc field will get the email just like the main recipient but will know they are not the main focus. People whose email addresses go in the Bcc, or Blind Copy, field will get the email, but other recipients will not know that they received the email.
3. In the Subject field, type a brief reason for sending the email. For example, an email to a friend to ask about a brownie recipe might say “Brownie Recipe” in the subject line.
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4. Type your email message in the main body of the window. It is polite to treat this like a regular letter. Start with a greeting and the recipient’s name and then follow with complete sentences to communicate your message. End with a closing and your name.
5. When you are satisfied with your message, don’t’ forget to proofread your emails, click the blue Send button in the lower left corner.
Note: When sending an email to a large group of people who may not know one another, put your own email address in the To field and everyone else’s email addresses in the Bcc field. This ensures that people can keep their email addresses private if they wish to. Recipients will still be able to reply directly to you, but not to anyone else.
Responding to an Email If you wish to respond to an email, you have a few options. Look at the image below: Report as spam Sender
Print email Show email addresses Reply
Recipient(s)
Open message in new window
More options These buttons are self-explanatory To respond to only the send, click the button that says “Reply” or the curved arrow in the top right. To reply to everyone who received the email, click “Reply All.” To forward this email to someone else, click “Forward.” In each case, a new message window will pop up for you type your message. You will see the email you are replying to or forwarding below your message.
Note: Do not use “Reply All” unless your message is for everyone who received the email.
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Advanced Email Settings This tool bar sits at the bottom of your New Message window. Change text size Change font
Attach a file Schedule send
Show/hide format tools
Text format – Bold, Italic, etc.
Lists Text alignment
Insert emoji
Insert hyperlink
Insert from Google Drive
Delete message
Insert photo More options
Most of the tools for modifying text will be familiar from Word or Google Docs, they are similar. Here are some of the other options that may be unfamiliar: •
Schedule send allows you to send a message at a time of your choosing in the future.
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Attaching a file to an email is an important capability we will discuss in a later section.
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To insert a hyperlink in an email, copy the web address from your browser by highlighting the web address and holding CTRL and C at the same time. Then come back to your email, highlight the text you want to become a link, and click the chain icon. Then paste the link into the appropriate field in the window by clicking and holding CTRL and V. Click OK when you’re finished.
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To delete the message you’re typing, click the trash can. Note that Gmail automatically saves emails as you go. If you are suddenly logged out of Gmail or your battery runs out in the middle of typing, you can find the email you were working on in your Drafts folder. This folder is located in the list of folders at the left-hand side of your primary inbox.
Note: Remember that if you are curious about the icons you see in Gmail, you can place your cursor on the icon without clicking for a moment and the name of the icon will pop up.
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Attachments Email can be an easy way to send and receive files. A file sent via email is called an attachment. In Gmail, the total size of the attachments cannot exceed 25 MB. You can attach a file in three ways: 1. You can attach files from your computer by selecting them in a file browser. 2. You can drag and drop files into the body of the email. 3. You can attach files, or share links to files, through Google Drive. Attaching with a file browser 1. Open a new email message in your primary inbox. 2. Click the paperclip icon at the bottom of the window. 3. The File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) window will open. 4. Select the file you want to attach and click Open. Click and Drag 1. Open a new email message in your primary inbox. 2. Click on a file on your desktop or in the File Explorer window, then drag it into the body of the email. 3. A box with “Drop Files Here” written in it will appear in the email body and a small green plus sign will appear near the file you are dragging. 4. Let go of the mouse button while the file and cursor are in the email body. Sharing with Google Drive 1. Open a new email message in your primary inbox. 2. Click the Google Drive icon. A window will pop up showing the contents of your google drive. 3. Click the file you want to share, then choose “Attach File” or “Share Link.” If you attach the file, an actual file will be sent. If you share the link, a link to the file in your Google Drive will be sent. Opening Attachments In your inbox, an email with an attachment will have an icon under the subject line to show you what kind of attachment it is. Generally, a red square is for PDFs, a blue square for Word and Docs, a green square for Excel and Sheets, and a red mountain for images.
Note: DO NOT open attachments or click links in emails from senders that you do not trust or recognize. Malicious links and attachments are a way for people to gain control of your accounts or introduce malware into your computer. To open and read attachments in Gmail: 1. At the bottom of an email with an attachment, you will see a thumbnail image of the attachment. Click on it for a preview. In the image below, there are four attachments on the email. The blue square with horizontal lines in the lower left indicates a Google Docs document. The blue square with the W in it indicates a Word document. Page 8
2. The preview will open in a separate window and you can read or print the attachment. 3. If you want to download the attachment to your computer, hover on the thumbnail and click the down arrow icon. Again, only do this if you trust the sender!
This is the view with a hovering cursor
4. To save the attachment into your Google Drive, hover over the thumbnail and click the Google Drive icon. 5. To edit the document in Google, click the pencil icon.
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Organizing Your Inbox Gmail includes 15 gigabytes of storage, which is a lot, and allows you to search your inbox just like you search the web but keeping every email that comes into your inbox is not a good way to keep track of things. •
If you receive an email from someone you don’t know, or from a business you don’t remember giving your email address to, you can report the email as spam (junk mail) by clicking the stop sign icon in the upper left.
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To delete an email, check the box to the left of the email and then click the garbage can icon. You can click several emails and delete them all at once.
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In the menu on the left, you can add labels to emails to organize them. It’s like creating files for different emails. Creating labels like “Work or “Personal,” or labels for different projects, can help you keep track of specific emails.
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Gmail will automatically push some emails into your Spam folder. It’s a good idea to periodically check your Spam folder to make sure there aren’t important emails there. Be careful clicking on any links or attachments in emails that wind up in your Spam folder.
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More Resources •
Google Support: https://support.google.com/
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A more in-depth tutorial: https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/gmail/introduction-to-gmail/1/
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Thank you for reading Hired’s Digital Literacy Series: Introduction to Gmail
Read our other digital literacy modules: • Module 1 • Module 2 • Module 3
Visit www.hired.org for more information
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