Top Google Mail FAQs

Only certain users, primarily current instructors and students, have the option to not opt into TMU Gmail. If you are a staff member who does not fall into either category, you will be automatically opted into TMU Gmail. As such, you were not prompted to opt-in.

You you will log in to Google Apps at Toronto Metropolitan University through my.torontomu.ca using your my.torontomu users Id ans password. The only time you will have to set up a different password is if you choose to access your email account using a desktop client (IMAP or POP) or through your mobile device.

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Please see the following  (google doc) Google Doc (external link, opens in new window)  (click on the link).

To search for messages, type a word that the messages contain. Note, however, that Search matches "whole words" only—that is, it doesn't recognize partial or similar matches. For example, if you search for benefits, Search won't find benefit or benef. Also, Search doesn't recognize special search characters, such as square brackets, parentheses, currency symbols, the ampersand, the pound sign, and asterisks.

By default, Search doesn't look in your Trash or Spam folders. To search those folders also, click Show search options next to the Search field, and then, in the Search drop-down list, select Mail & Spam & Trash. You can find more information about using Search in the Gmail Help Center (external link) .

A list of the advanced search operators is available in the Gmail Help Center (external link) . You can also print out  (PDF file) PDF filethis reference sheet (external link) .

There are no other system requirements. Because Google Apps runs in a web browser, you just need to use a supported browser.

Your account has unlimited storage. You'll probably never run out of space. In fact, a heavy email user who sends and receives lots of file attachments and archives all messages might use up to 5% of this space a year (usually less), so it would take decades to use up all of the available space. Also note that Google Apps restricts the size of file attachments to 20 MB, so you don't have to worry about a few large files using up your storage space.

Gmail includes a full set of keyboard shortcuts. First, you must enable keyboard shortcuts:

1. In the upper-right corner of the Mail window, click Settings.
2. Under Keyboard shortcuts, select Keyboard shortcuts on.
3. Click Save Settings.

Then, to see the shortcuts, press SHIFT+? while viewing your list of messages in the main Mail window.

Gmail does not really support shared mailboxes. But as a workaround, you can create your own mailing list (called a "group") for all the employees who want to share an email address. This requires that your administrator has enabled User-Managed groups for your domain. If user-managed groups aren't available, then you should ask your Google Apps administrator to set up a mailing list (group) for all the employees who want to share an email address.

Or if email delegation is enabled for your domain, you can use that to allow up to 10 other users access a single email account.

Shared mailboxes aren't supported. However, you can easily set up an email filter (rule) to forward specific types of messages to another employee.

If Google Talk is enabled for your domain, you can make Gmail the default email program when I click links. In that case, specify Gmail as your default email program as follows:

1. Open Google Talk.
2. Click Settings in the upper-right corner of your contacts list.
3. In the General dialog box, select Open Gmail when I click on email links.
4. Click OK.

Note, however, that this setting doesn't work for all email links.

You can delete one or more messages in a conversation as follows:

1. Open the conversation and expand the message you want to delete.
2. Open the drop-menu at the top-right of the message.
3. Select Delete this message.

Yes, if your browser is set to display pop-ups in a new window, you can do the following:

• If you're reading a message, click the New Window icon in the upper-right corner of the message.
• If you're composing a new message, click the New Window icon in the upper-right corner of the message.

Click Check Spelling at the top of the message you're composing. Misspelled words are highlighted in yellow. Click a misspelled word to see suggested corrections.

Please see the following Google Support page (external link, opens in new window)  (click on the link).

Yes. Click Settings in the upper-right corner of your Gmail window and, on the General tab, scroll down to Conversation View.

• If Conversation View is off, new messages won't be grouped into conversations, and any existing conversations are ungrouped into separate messages.
• If Conversation View is on, you can't separate the messages in a conversation. However, if you want to send a reply but don't want it to be added to the conversation, you can simply change the subject line in your reply.

Select the message. Then, in the More drop-down list, select Mark as unread.

Yes, Gmail Labs has an early version of a new "message undo" feature that lets you recall a message within a few seconds after you send it. To enable the feature, open your Gmail Settings, go to the Labs tab, and enable the Undo Send lab.

Note that your Google Apps administrator must enable Labs for your domain for this feature to be available.

You cannot embed one message into another directly. As a workaround, you can do the following:

1. To attach a single message, open it and click Forward (from the drop-menu at the top of the message). To attach a conversation, open it click Forward all on the right.
2. Then compose your new message and send it. The earlier message will be included below your new message.

Alternatively, you can copy the text from the earlier message and paste it into a new message.

Because Gmail is a web-based system, you can't drag a file attachment from one message to another. As a workaround, you can do the following:

1. Open the message or conversation that contains the file attachment.
2. If the file is attached to a single message, click Forward (from the drop-menu at the top of the message). If it's attached to a message in a conversation, click Forward all on the right.
3. Delete all the "forwarded" content from original messages, which appears at the bottom of your new message. Note that the file attachment remains with the forwarded message.
4. Then compose your new message and send it.

Alternatively, you can download the attachment and then upload it to another message.

To help prevent viruses, Gmail won't accept file attachments that are executable files. There's also a 20 MB size limitation for attachments. For details, see the external,Gmail Help Center. (external link) 

You can create up to about 200 labels.

You can apply any number of labels to a message: Select the message in your Inbox, or open it, and select one or more labels in the Labels drop-down list at the top of your Mail window.

You can create nested or subfolders under other folders.  For more details see Create a label (external link) .

Deleting a label does not delete the messages that have that label. All it does is remove the label from the messages.

At this time, it is not possible to move messages from "Sent Mail" to another label in the web interface. One possible solution is to set up your account with a desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird, and move your messages around within it. You can find more information about setting up Outlook and Thunderbird at https://www.torontomu.ca/google/usingapps/viaemailclient.html.

Messages remain in your archive forever, unless you choose to delete them.

Messages remain in the Trash for 30 days. After that, Gmail permanently deletes them.

Find the message in the Trash and select it. Then, in the Move to drop-down list at the top of the Mail window, select Inbox.

If someone replies to a message you archived or trashed, that message reappears in your Inbox as a conversation, bringing the message you archived or deleted, with it. If the message has already been permanently deleted from the Trash, you'll see an option at the bottom of the message to view the deleted messages in the conversation.

There's no need to delete or archive messages in the Sent folder. Messages remain in this folder forever, unless you delete them. But, because you have unlimited combined storage space, you can keep messages in this folder to refer to them later, if needed. Also, note that messages in the Sent folder are actually archived in All Mail, so even if you archive these messages, they stay in the Sent folder.

When you "delete" a message from your Apple mobile device, by default, it will archive the message but NOT put it in the Trash as you might expect. Please see Advanced Option: How to use iOS Delete Settings with Google Sync for more information.

Yes, if Google Talk is enabled for your domain. In that case, specify Gmail as your default email program as follows:

1. Open Google Talk.
2. Click Settings in the upper-right corner of your contacts list.
3. In the General dialog box, select Open Gmail when I click on email links.
4. Click OK.

Note, however, that this setting doesn't work for all email links.

No you do not, although you can if you like. The migration of your primary account will in no way affect your secondary account.

These are not actually advertisements, but are referred to by Google as “Web Clips”. You can remove them as follows: Click the gear icon at the top right of your screen and select “Settings.” Go to the “Web Clips” tab on your Settings page and uncheck “Show my web clips above the Inbox.”

You can opt out of TMU’s Gmail provided you have a strong case for it. Provide your reason in an email request to 'help@torontomu.ca' and your case will be handled at an individual basis.

Students and faculty can choose between using Gmail or RMail, TMU’s legacy internal email system. They will be asked via a prompt when they log into my.torontomu.ca once we are ready to collect opt-ins. This decision can be changed in the my.torontomu.ca self-serve up until we go live with Google. For those Faculty and Student's thinking about not opting-in, we should point out that users may find that RMail has limited storage and less functionality than Gmail. You will also have a difficult time sending Google calendar invites to RMail users.  While you can receive event invitations in RMail, you can not accept a calendar invite. You will have to log into your Google Calendar to access all calendaring features.  By default everyone will be given access to a Google Calendar, Google Drive and Google Docs.

Visit our email client set up page for instructions https://www.torontomu.ca/google/usingapps/viaemailclient.html

If you prefer to use a desktop (AKA a "thick client") email program such as Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc., please check the instructions for supported IMAP clients here.

TMU will not be migrating users’ desktop email clients (such as Outlook and Thunderbird) to Google. However, Google offers a migration tool that you can download to help you migrate desktop email clients independently. You can download the migration tool here:
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/outlookmigration (external link)  You can also use GMail Loader to help you through this process: http://www.marklyon.org/gmail/ (external link) .

Yes. This new functionality is already since Oct. 9, 2012.

To search for messages, type a word that the messages contain. Note, however, that Search matches "whole words" only—that is, it doesn't recognize partial or similar matches. For example, if you search for benefits, Search won't find benefit or benef. Also, Search doesn't recognize special search characters, such as square brackets, parentheses, currency symbols, the ampersand, the pound sign, and asterisks.

By default, Search doesn't look in your Trash or Spam folders. To search those folders also, click Show search options next to the Search field, and then, in the Search drop-down list, select Mail & Spam & Trash. You can find more information about using Search in the Gmail Help Center (external link) .

A list of the advanced search operators is available in the Gmail Help Center (external link) . You can also print out  (PDF file) this reference sheet (external link) .

Toronto Metropolitan University has signed a contract with Google and is using the Google Apps For Education edition. This is different from the consumer version that your personal email account is set up on. This educational version will not do any data mining, or present you with advertisements. When you are logged into your TMU Google apps account on the web interface, you will see TMU branding at the top of the page.

That being said, there are several ways you can log into both accounts. For instructions on how to do this go to:https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=69570 (external link) . However, the easiest way to prevent confusion is to open up multiple browsers (Firefox and Chrome, I.E. etc.) to log into different accounts.

Visit our email client set up page for instructions https://www.torontomu.ca/google/usingapps/viaemailclient.html

Only certain users, primarily current instructors and students, have the option to not opt into TMU Gmail. If you are a staff member who does not fall into either category, you will be automatically opted into TMU Gmail. As such, you were not prompted to opt-in.

Only certain users, primarily current instructors and students, have the option to not opt into TMU Gmail. If you are a staff member who does not fall into either category, you will be automatically opted into TMU Gmail. As such, you were not prompted to opt-in.

To upload an image for your Gmail account:

• Click the gear in the top Gmail navigation bar.
• Select Mail settings.
• Make sure you're on the General tab.
• Click Select a picture under My picture.
• To use an image from your computer:
• Make sure My Computer is selected on the left.
• Use the Browse... or Choose file... button to select the desired image

Yes, you will be able to use outlook to access TMU GMail. You can also use the Google Apps Sync tool (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync (external link) ) to help you access not only TMU Gmail, but also Google Calendar, your contacts and more through Outlook. This tool allows you to sign onto your Outlook and Google Apps once, as opposed to signing in multiple times. Visit TMU's Email Client Set Up page for more details as well.

No, your @ryerson.ca email address will remain unchanged after you have switched to Gmail. Once you make the switch over to Gmail, you will also have single sign-on access to the my.torontomu portal, so you won’t have to log in to various TMU systems multiple times. Your email address also won’t change if you choose not to opt-in to use Gmail (faculty and staff only), however all your mail will be delivered to your RMail account.

When you send mail to any mailing list you own or are subscribed to, Gmail automatically skips your inbox and archives the message to save you time and prevent clutter. The message will appear in your inbox if someone responds to it or if there is an error delivering the message. If you would like to view your message, you can find it in Sent Mail or All Mail.

Rmail will not be moved to Gmail, but please keep in mind that IMAP/POP3/Web access will be disabled for those who are migrated to GMail so that people won't accidentally access it and send emails from RMail. Please also note that If you forward all your RMail to GW and also store a copy in your RMail, you may want to clean up RMail to cut down the migration time for your RMail to Gmail and to avoid duplicates from RMail after migration. Here’s list of all things that you must do, should do and things that will not migrate.

Move your subfolders out of the locked folders and into new folders, then deleted the locked folders.

The trash folder will NOT migrate, so make sure to move all important mail out of the Trash folder. Please note that the Trash folder in your new TMU Gmail account will automatically be purged every 30 days.

Yes, generic email accounts are also getting the whole “Google” package, including email, calendar, Google Drive, etc.  But you, as the owner of this account, must manually opt-in to migrate your generic account How to do this: log into my.torontomu.ca with your own personal credentials Click on “Manage My Resources,” then “Manage TMU GMail Opt In Preference for Generic Accounts.” From there you can opt in to move your generic account(s) over to Google.

Yes. Open the conversation and expand the individual message. From the drop-menu at the top-right of the message, click Reply or Forward.

Yes, you can delete one or more messages in a conversation as follows:

1. Open the conversation and expand the message you want to delete.
2. Open the drop-menu at the top-right of the message.
3. Select Delete this message.

Yes, if your browser is set to display pop-ups in a new window, you can do the following:

• If you're reading a message, click the New Window icon in the upper-right corner of the message.
• If you're composing a new message, click the New Window icon in the upper-right corner of the message.

Click Check Spelling at the top of the message you're composing. Misspelled words are highlighted in yellow. Click a misspelled word to see suggested corrections.

Yes, Gmail Labs has an early version of a new "message undo" feature that lets you recall a message within a few seconds after you send it. To activate the feature, open your Gmail Settings, go to the Labs tab, and activate the Undo Send lab.

Note that your Google Apps administrator must activate Labs for your domain for this feature to be available.

Yes. Click Settings in the upper-right corner of your Gmail window and, on the General tab, scroll down to Conversation View.

• If Conversation View is off, new messages won't be grouped into conversations, and any existing conversations are ungrouped into separate messages.
• If Conversation View is on, you can't separate the messages in a conversation. However, if you want to send a reply but don't want it to be added to the conversation, you can simply change the subject line in your reply.

Select the message. Then, in the More drop-down list, select Mark as unread.

Your account has unlimited storage. You'll probably never run out of space. In fact, a heavy email user who sends and receives lots of file attachments and archives all messages might use up to 5% of this space a year (usually less), so it would take decades to use up all of the available space. Also note that Google Apps restricts the size of file attachments to 20 MB, so you don't have to worry about a few large files using up your storage space.

When you send mail to any mailing list you own or are subscribed to, Gmail automatically skips your inbox and archives the message to save you time and prevent clutter. The message will appear in your inbox if someone responds to it or if there is an error delivering the message. If you would like to view your message, you can find it in Sent Mail or All Mail.

Yes, if you're using a Chrome browser. Otherwise, you must browse to a file to attach it.

No, you can't embed one message into another directly. As a workaround, you can do the following:

1. To attach a single message, open it and click Forward (from the drop-menu at the top of the message). To attach a conversation, open it click Forward all on the right.
2. Then compose your new message and send it. The earlier message will be included below your new message.

Alternatively, you can copy the text from the earlier message and paste it into a new message.

Because Gmail is a web-based system, you can't drag a file attachment from one message to another. As a workaround, you can do the following:

1. Open the message or conversation that contains the file attachment.
2. If the file is attached to a single message, click Forward (from the drop-menu at the top of the message). If it's attached to a message in a conversation, click Forward all on the right.
3. Delete all the "forwarded" content from original messages, which appears at the bottom of your new message. Note that the file attachment remains with the forwarded message.
4. Then compose your new message and send it.

Alternatively, you can download the attachment and then upload it to another message.

Yes. To help prevent viruses, Gmail won't accept file attachments that are executable files. There's also a 20 MB size limitation for attachments. For details, see the Gmail Help Center. (external link) 

Instead of folders, Gmail has a "labels" feature. Labels are similar to folders, but are more powerful and flexible, because you can add multiple labels to a message to categorize it in several ways. For details, see the Gmail Help Center (external link) .

You can create up to about 200 labels.

Yes, you can apply any number of labels to a message: Select the message in your Inbox, or open it, and select one or more labels in the Labels drop-down list at the top of your Mail window.

Yes you can create nested or subfolders under other folders.  For more details see Create a label (external link) .

No. All it does is remove the label from the messages.

At this time, this is not possible in the web interface. One possible solution is to set up your account with a desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird, and move your messages around within it. You can find more information about setting up Outlook and Thunderbird at https://www.torontomu.ca/google/usingapps/viaemailclient.html.

Deleting or archiving a message removes it from your inbox. If you delete a message, it's placed in the Trash and then permanently removed from your Google Apps account after 30 days. If you archive a message, it's moved to All Mail (your archive), where you can easily find it in the future, using Google's powerful search feature. Since you have plenty of space (unlimited) for storing all your mail, we recommend that you archive messages rather than permanently deleting them.

Messages remain in your archive forever, unless you choose to delete them.

Messages remain in the Trash for 30 days. After that, Gmail permanently deletes them.

Find the message in the Trash and select it. Then, in the Move to drop-down list at the top of the Mail window, select Inbox.

If someone replies to a message you archived or trashed, that message reappears in your Inbox as a conversation, bringing the message you archived or deleted, with it. If the message has already been permanently deleted from the Trash, you'll see an option at the bottom of the message to view the deleted messages in the conversation.

There's no need to delete or archive messages in the Sent folder. Messages remain in this folder forever, unless you delete them. But, because you have unlimited combined storage space, you can keep messages in this folder to refer to them later, if needed. Also, note that messages in the Sent folder are actually archived in All Mail, so even if you archive these messages, they stay in the Sent folder.

When you "delete" a message from your Apple mobile device, by default, it will archive the message but NOT put it in the Trash as you might expect. Please see Advanced Option: How to use iOS Delete Settings with Google Sync for more information.

Shared mailboxes aren't supported. However, you can easily set up an email filter (rule) to forward specific types of messages to another employee.

Yes, Gmail includes a full set of keyboard shortcuts. First, you must enable keyboard shortcuts:

1. In the upper-right corner of the Mail window, click Settings.
2. Under Keyboard shortcuts, select Keyboard shortcuts on.
3. Click Save Settings.

Then, to see the shortcuts, press SHIFT+? while viewing your list of messages in the main Mail window.

Not exactly. But as a workaround, you can create your own mailing list (called a "group") for all the employees who want to share an email address. This requires that your administrator has enabled User-Managed groups for your domain. If user-managed groups aren't available, then you should ask your Google Apps administrator to set up a mailing list (group) for all the employees who want to share an email address.

Or if email delegation is enabled for your domain, you can use that to allow up to 10 other users access a single email account.

Yes, the Google Task is available in Gmail and Calendar. For details, see Using the Tasks (external link) .

Messages remain in the Spam folder for 30 days. After that, Gmail permanently deletes them.

The Gmail "Spam" category is a mandatory part of all Gmail mailboxes.  It cannot be disabled and should be periodically checked for misfiled (non-spam) messages.

There are three pro-active things you can do to reduce the likelihood specific messages will be erroneously considered "Spam" :

1. Mark the message as “not spam”, check the box beside the message and click the Not Spam button above the message.  Future messages that are similar will have a lower chance of being falsely flagged.
2. Add legitimate senders to your Google Contacts (hover over the sender and select "Add to contacts").  Email addresses contained in your contacts have a lower chance of going to "Spam".
3. Create a filter for messages from this user using the Never send it to Spam option:
   1. Select the spam message.
   2. From the upper-right, select More.
   3. Select "Filter messages like these".
   4. Verify the "From" in the next window contains the appropriate sender address.
   5. Select "Create filter with this search".
   6. Put a check-mark in "Never send it to spam".
   7. Click "create filter"