Ever get an email from someone you didn’t know or needed to prep for a big meeting?
Did you Google the name to try and learn more?
In this article, we’ll show you a way to do this search much faster than digging through Google results.
We’ll also show you a new way to keep great notes about a project—without leaving your Gmail inbox.
Both features are free. They can be used by anyone with a Gmail account and the cloudHQ Gmail Label Sharing Chrome extension.
1. Private Notes for Any Email
Many of you swear by Evernote, and for good reason. There is no better way to store notes and other project data—forever.
But what about the notes you don’t need to keep forever?
What if you could write notes to yourself about an ongoing project directly within your email?
Now you can.
In Gmail, open any email. Then click the “Add Notes” button on the right.
From here you can write anything you want.
If you often receive project requests via email, use this feature to keep track of what you’ve done.
If you receive sales leads by email, keep notes about a new prospect right alongside the need, without having to jump to another application.
2. Instantly Research a New Contact
The next time you get an email from a new contact, don’t switch over to Google to research the name.
Instead, type “/info” into the notes area next to the email.
The person’s photo, bio, and their social media profiles will appear.
While there are other services that are available, we feel that one is much more robust since we get the info from multiple social platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, if applicable). Not to brag, but our tool drastically cuts down on your information hunting.
To learn more about the person, just click the profile links at the bottom:
The Payoff
Email continues to be a major part of many of our lives—especially at work.
We designed these new features help you be more productive, without having to leave Gmail or rely on other chat or note-taking applications.
If you liked the new features in this article, check out the other things you can do in Gmail using our FREE Chrome extension, including: