The Center for Teaching and Learning 480.461.7331 http://ctl.mesacc.edu
[email protected]
GMAIL BASICS, INBOX OPTIONS & MESSAGES Gmail is the Maricopa County Community Colleges supported email platform. Each Maricopa employee and student is assigned a Gmail account once they are admitted or hired to any one of the colleges. Through this tutorial you will learn to: ● Access your Employee Gmail account ● Become familiar with your basic inbox options ● Compose and send an email message (including adding attachments, replying and forwarding) ● Print a message
Accessing Maricopa Gmail ● Where do I login? Login into your Maricopa Gmail using your browser through MyMCC https://orion.mesacc.edu/portal/ or https://accounts.maricopa.edu ● What is the preferred method for accessing Gmail? Although Gmail can work with email clients like Thunderbird and Outlook, the preferred method for accessing Gmail is through your web browser. Note: Chrome is the preferred browser for Gmail. This is the Login window you will see at: https://accounts.maricopa.edu You will need your MEID and password to login. If you forgot your user name and or password, use the recovery tool at:https://memo2.maricopa.edu/cgi bin/UserLookupMEID.pl
Your INBOX This is your inbox view. Here you will see any messages you’ve received in your inbox. Unread messages are bold. To open a message, simply click on it in your message list.
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The Center for Teaching and Learning 480.461.7331 http://ctl.mesacc.edu
[email protected]
About Conversations By default, replies to messages are grouped into conversations. A conversation keeps all messages in a thread together in a single inbox entry from that sender. In your inbox conversations are notated by a number displayed to the right of the senders’ name. For example: John Doe (13). This helps reduce inbox clutter. When you select a conversation you will be able to scroll through each part of that particular conversation as part of the thread. Here’s what an open conversation looks like:
Note: You can control whether messages are grouped into conversations: Click the gray Gear menu > Mail settings in the upperright hand corner of your Gmail window and, on the General tab, scroll down to Conversation View. If Conversation View is off, messages (new or old) will not be grouped into conversations.
Display Density Display density allows you to adjust how many messages you see at onetime in your inbox without having to advance to the next page. Click the gray Gear menu in the upperright hand corner of your Gmail window and select from the following, Comfortable, Cozy or Compact.
Preview Pane If you prefer you can set your inbox to display a preview of the message below or beside your conversations. To enable Preview Pane, click the gray Gear menu > Mail settings in the upperright hand corner of your Gmail window and, on the Labs tab, scroll down to Preview Pane. Select Enable > Save changes. Use the new Preview Pane (displayed to the left) tool next to the gray Gear menu to set your preview settings. A Horizontal Split displays the message preview below your conversations, a Vertical Split displays messages to the side.
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The Center for Teaching and Learning 480.461.7331 http://ctl.mesacc.edu
[email protected]
Composing & Sending Messages Follow the following steps to compose and send a message: 1. From the Inbox view, on the left, click Compose 2. In the To field, type the first few letters of the recipient’s name to look up the address of a contact. You can copy or blind copy recipients by selecting Add Cc or Add Bcc respectively. 3. Enter a subject and the message text.
Note: The Maricopa Employee Directory is already loaded in to Gmail to assist you with composing internal emails.
Add an Attachment When composing a message, click Attach a file under the subject line, and then browse to the file on your computer. You can also drag and drop files on to the composition window to add attachments.
Send a Message When you are done with your message, at the top of the composition window, click Send. (Or if you change your mind, select Discard to abandon a message or Save Now to make a draft message.) A message displays at the top of the Mail window to confirm that your message was sent. Note: Don't worry about losing messages as you compose them Gmail automatically saves drafts every few minutes. If you'd like to save a draft manually, just click Save Now. To retrieve a draft, click Drafts label on the left side of the inbox area.
Reply to a Message You can reply to just the sender or to all recipients of a message. To reply, open the message and click Reply or Reply to all. If the message is part of a conversation, open the conversation and select the part of the conversation you want to reply to. You can add other recipients to the reply.
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The Center for Teaching and Learning 480.461.7331 http://ctl.mesacc.edu
[email protected]
Forward a Message You can forward a message, just a single message in a conversation, or an entire conversation. To forward a message, open the message and at the bottom of the page click Forward. If the message is part of a conversation, open the conversation and select the part of the conversation you want to forward and select Forward or More > Forward all. Enter the email address to which to forward the message, and add any notes in the message field and select SEND. Note: You have an option to forward attachments connected with the message by unchecking or checking the box next to the attachment’s file name.
Print a Message Gmail print features allow you to print a single message, an entire conversation, or just a single message in a conversation. To print a message or an entire conversation open the message or conversation, and in the upper right hand side of the message click the Print all button. To print a single part of a conversation, open the conversation and select the message you want to print. Click the down arrow at the topright of the message, and then click Print. Use your browsers print settings to adjust your print features as needed.
Custom Signatures To customize your signature in Gmail follow the following steps: 1. Open Gmail 2. In the upperright hand corner of the Mail window, click the gray Gears menu > Mail settings. 3. On the General tab, in the Signature section, enter your signature in the box. You have options to format the text and add links and images. Note: You can only setup one signature.
Sorting [Searching] Emails in Your Inbox In the Mail settings you have options to sort mail chronologically or by importance or priority. You can't sort messages by clicking the column headings in your Inbox. However, you can use the Gmail Search tool to list messages according to sender, date, subject, etc. Searching is more powerful than sorting because it will look for the search term in the messages you have received and sent. It will even look in the message body or content for the search term. The search feature can check for messages that meet the term throughout your inbox and labels, even messages in the trash! For more information about searching visit: http://tinyurl.com/GoogleSort
Additional Resources Mesa Resources: http://www.mesacc.edu/googleapps/ District Resources: https://sites.google.com/a/maricopa.edu/googleappsformaricopa/gmail
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