Email has been around longer than the Internet so maybe we're reaching a point where there's not that much left to do to improve it. Web mail clients like Gmail are brimming with features catering to everyone from the novice users to the most advanced ones. The email client from Google was also one of the first products to get a dedicated Labs section, which has since grown to quite an impressive list of features and tools. Now Gmail is introducing a new tool called “Got the wrong Bob?” which, while not exactly crucial, may save a lot of people a lot of headaches by preventing them from sending an email to the wrong person.

“When's the last time you got an email from a stranger asking, 'Are you sure you meant to send this to me?' and promptly realized that you didn't? Sometimes these little mistakes are actually quite painful. Hate mail about your boss to your boss? Personal info to some random guy named Bob instead of Bob the HR rep? Doh!,” Ari Leichtberg, software engineer, and Yossi Matias, head of Israel Engineering Center, wrote. “'Got the wrong Bob?' is a new Labs feature aimed at sparing you this kind of embarrassment.”

The tool is available from the Labs section in the Settings section though spotting it in the ever-increasing list of Labs tools and gadgets may be difficult. After you activate the tool, Gmail will suggest alternative contacts with a “did you mean” feature when a name of a recipient is similar to another one of your contacts. The feature is only activated when you are emailing more than two people at once and also takes into account the usual group of contacts you send the same email to.

The feature may not be that obvious in normal use and in fact it may be a while before it even kicks in. But when it does what it's supposed to and saves you from a potentially embarrassing situation you'll be glad you enabled it. With the new tool, Google also decided to change the name of the existing Labs tool "Suggest more recipients" to the more appropriate "Don't forget Bob," considering that the two are rather complementary.