Saving you a few clicks and precious time

Jun 8, 2010 08:09 GMT  ·  By

One of the nice things in Gmail is the integrated preview, which enables users to watch YouTube videos, view Flickr images, and so on. This small feature can end up saving them a lot of time, little by little. Gmail is now introducing a new preview tool, which enables one to view an address on Google Maps right inside the Gmail web client. And, not to feel left out, Google Buzz is also getting a similar feature.

“I often receive emails containing addresses in them — where to meet for dinner, the location of my friend's new apartment, etc. To find out where these places actually are, I have to copy the address, open up Google Maps, and paste it in. Today, we're making it easier to see maps of all the addresses you receive in Gmail and Google Buzz,” Mark Knichel, software engineer at Google, announced.

For now, the feature, dubbed “Google Maps previews in mail,” is available in Gmail Labs, like most of the other preview tools. This is meant to keep the Gmail interface clutter-free and to test the new feature before maybe including it by default, but it will probably limit its spread.

If you want to enable the Maps previews, go to the Labs tab in the Settings and scroll down or search for “Google Maps previews in mail.” Select ‘enable,’ scroll down some more, hit save and you’re done. You can do the same to enable previews for Flickr and Picasa photos, Docs documents and Yelp reviews. YouTube video previews are now built into Gmail.

Gmail will detect any addresses in the body of the message and list them below along with the embedded Maps. This only works for US addresses, but Google says it will eventually enable it for all addresses. If you use Google Buzz to direct people to a location on Google Maps, you’ll notice that, below the message, there’s an image preview of the location as seen on Maps. It’s not a full-blown, embedded, interactive map, but it helps give people an idea of where the place is located.

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