Gmail Labs launched two new features early this morning, Message Sneak Peek and Nested Labels. The features can be activated in your Gmail account very simply – just enable them from the Labs tab in your Settings. Here is a brief description of what each can offer you:
Message Sneak Peek
The name describes it perfectly – the feature allows you to peek into any message/mail in your Inbox, without actually opening it. You can see the preview/sneak peek by right-clicking the message in the Inbox. You can also selecting a message via the checkbox, and then use the keyboard shortcut ‘h’. Once the preview pane is open, you can scroll through messages above and below it, with the keyboard shortcuts ‘j’ and ‘k’ respectively. For keyboard shortcuts to work however, you will need to enable them first in settings. The Message Sneak Peek function only works for both unread and read messages. Your unread message stay as unread once you have peeked at them. If the message you are reading has a thread, then you can view choose to view all of them, or scroll through them one by one. It automatically opens on the most recent message.
Nested Labels
Again, this is a well-named feature, allowing you to do exactly what you’d think it would to. Nested Labels allows you to created sub-labels within labels (or in other words, sub-categories within your mail categories), by simply using a forward slash ‘/’. So, all you have to do is to create a new label, and name it with a ‘/’. As the blog puts it:
For example, let’s say you wanted to create a simple hierarchy with a “Home” label, and inside it a “Family” and a “Vacation” label. Just create three labels with the following names:
Home
Home/Family
Home/Vacation
You can then create “Home/Family/Kids,” “Home/Pets,” etc., to get something like the screenshot below. If you had the parent label “Home” before you don’t have to create it from scratch.
Note, these are both experimental features, and are far from perfect. They may cause some errors with your mail. However, your valuable feedback will help decide if the features will ‘graduate’ to Gmail proper, or be removed from the Labs feature list. Also note, the Nested Labels feature will not work properly if you have the “Hide Read Labels” feature turned on.
Refer to the Official Google Blog for more information.