For doing email

Gmail

works very well. At the same time it looks rather plain and ordinary. Lots of white background with blue text links and so on. It doesn't have to be that way, however, if you take a little time to improve it.

Many people balk at Gmail's lack of folders, but

Gmail's system of using Labels and Filters

is actually much more powerful and usable. With the intelligent use of

labels

you can flag your email as it comes in. On top of that you can then

manipulate labels through the use of filters

. It all adds up to a full-featured system. You can even

add multiple labels

to a single email. Try doing that with folders!

Nearly all email clients use folders for organizing your email. Gmail doesn't. It has

Labels and Filters

. With the clever use of

filters

you can make your email more efficient and make yourself more efficient as well.

Filters

can go through your incoming mail and put things exactly how you want them before you ever have to look at an email.

Most of us get quite a bit of email each day. Email from friends, family, colleagues, and more. We get email from businesses we deal with, newsletters from groups we belong to and confirmation emails from payments or orders. Through the use of colors, in conjunction with Labels and Filters, Gmail gives you a powerful way to manage and take control of your inbox and organize your email.

When Gmail was first released one thing that troubled some users was that it wasn't going to use folders. Folders are used everywhere, right? In Windows, on a Mac, in Linux, in Outlook, in Thunderbird, they all have folders. How can you

work without folders

? In short, better. If you give good

labels

to your incoming email and

filter

that email intelligently, by the time you add colors you have essentially made yourself folders without boundaries. Folders that aren't conventional folders, but they serve the same purpose.

The basic foundations of Gmail are solid. However, the system is designed to work the way Google thinks it should... that may not be the way you like to work. Google has created Google Labs so they can a toss out a variety of features and see which ones users really like. There are

Google Labs

features available that

give Gmail more functionality

.

As you progress in your use of Gmail you're going to want to integrate more than just email. You can use a handy Google Labs function to put Google Documents just a click away right from your Gmail interface. This makes using Gmail even more handy and convenient.

Some argue that the cloud computing concept, where all your data is stored on the network, won't work because when the cloud is "down" you can't access... well, anything. With Google Gears however, you can. By installing

Google Gears

you can have your

Gmail downloaded

to your computer so you can access it even when you can't get online. A powerful feature and easy to implement.

At this point you're becoming an intermediate user of Gmail. We've labeled, filtered, and colored our incoming mail. We've gotten access to Google Documents and we're using Gears so we can read our email even when we can't get online. Now it's time to add Remember The Milk so we can handle all of our tasks from the Gmail interface as well.

One of the many benefits of Gmail is the ability to archive your email. Not on some remote hard drive, but as part of Gmail itself. All messages that you archive are searchable. All attachments that are archived with email are still available. This is a huge benefit over traditional email and email clients.

Michael "Doctor File Finder" Callahan runs us through Gmail Intermediate Studies in this 10-part tutorial series. Learn how to

tweak your Gmail inbox, use labels, colors and filters in Gmail, get offline Gmail access with Google Gears

and much more. If you've watched our 10-part Gmail for Beginners tutorial series and are ready to

take control of your inbox

, the Doc abides with Gmail 201.