Here are five things you may not know you can do with Gmail to make sending, receiving, viewing, and finding attachments easier: 1. Drag attachments inSimply drag files from your desktop right into the message you’re composing and they’ll upload from there. (Google Chrome or Firefox 3.6 required.) 2. Multiple attachments Multi-select the files you want to attach by holding down the Ctrl key (or Command on a Mac) and clicking on each file you want to attach. Hold down the Shift key to select a continuous list of files. 3. Never forget an attachment again Gmail looks for phrases in your email that suggest you meant to attach a file (things like “I’ve attached” or “see attachment”) and warns you if it looks like you forgot to do so. Every day, this saves many people the embarrassment of having to send a follow-up email with the file actually attached. 4. View attachments online When you receive an attachment, sometimes you just want to view it and there’s no need to download or save to your desktop. The Google Docs viewer allows you to view .pdf, .ppt, and .tiff files in your browser. Just click the ‘View’ link at the bottom of the message. 5. Find that long lost attachment via search If you’re looking for an attachment someone has sent to you, Gmail’s advanced search operators can help you find what you’re looking for quickly and accurately.For example:
- To find all messages that contain attachments: has:attachment
- To find all messages from your friend David that contain attachments: from:david has:attachment
- To find all messages that have .pdf attachments: has:attachment pdf
- To find a specific attachment named, eg: physics homework.txt: filename:physicshomework.txt
