Google announced on Wednesday yet another feature that Google Voice subscribers would certainly be happy to learn about, the availability of Google Voice player on their Gmail, offering them the possibility to play Google Voice messages directly in Gmail. While until now a new web page opened when users clicked on the Play message button, it will all be done directly in Gmail.

All that users need to do is go to settings in their Gmail account and enable the Google Voice player. “Whenever you get a voicemail notification, the player will appear right below the message itself,” Google says, while also adding that the message status will be synced right away, so that messages that have been played in Gmail will appear as read in Google Voice inbox too.

As one can easily see, Google is bringing more and more features into its Google Voice service. Many of you might know that Google Voice already included voicemail notifications via email, which already came with a link to play the message (in addition to showing who called, and an automated transcript of the voicemail). This way, users were able to listen to the voicemail message directly on their computer. And things got even better now, with the Gmail integration.

In addition to that, a series of other features are available for Google Voice users, including the recently introduced feature that transforms received text messages into email, and enables users to reply to SMS messages by email. Those who would like to benefit from this feature can enable it in the call settings page, from where it can also be disabled.

Some of the features SMS-to-email forwarding comes with include:
- Unified messaging - You can get SMS together with email and voicemail notifications, all in one place in your email inbox, where you can easily search and reply to these messages.
- SMS savings - If you spend your time in front of your computer, or if you get email on your mobile phone, you can turn off SMS notification to your phone in Google Voice and receive and reply to your SMS by email, saving on SMS costs.
- SMS threading - If you use Gmail, you also get the extra benefit of threading all SMS between you and one contact into one conversation, so it is easy to see the whole discussion.