Gmail themes - customize your account using colors and images

I love surprises! Today (21st of November 2008), when I opened Gmail to check for new emails, I had to do a double-take. The Gmail homepage had changed. It was no longer the bland (and simple) page that I had grown accustomed to. Rather, there was a big image of a mountain stretched across the screen. Was I really on the Gmail homepage? Checking the URL assured me that I was indeed in the Google domain.

A brief announcement, right under the Gmail logo, threw all the doubts in the bin. Themes for Gmail are now available with which one could add color and images to one's account. This was something I HAD to see. So I logged in and saw the announcement again, blazoned across the top on the screen. Check out the Themes tab in Settings to personalize the look and feel of your inbox .... Cool!

Personalizing your account with Gmail themes

Gmail themes are found under the Settings (where else?). Click on the Settings tab on the left and then on the Themes tab. On the inaugural day, you can take your pick from 31 34 themes. These can potentially keep you busy till a month, if you like a change every day, and I suppose more will be added later - maybe Google gives us the ability to create themes using our own photographs in the days to come (read section below).

Themes like Zoozimps and Candy have cartoon characters (cute!) while the most "serious" one, in my opinion, is Terminal which changes the Gmail interface to 80s monochrome terminal monitor along with fixed-spaced font (Courier, probably).

When you select certain themes, you will be asked to provide your location (Country/Region and City). These themes use this information to determine the time at your place to display appropriate colors and images. So for example, if you log in at your Gmail account in the night, the photograph which was sunbathed during the day would turn to a night image. Having said that, I am not entirely sure why the user needs to enter this information because to know the local time, the programmers could have simply used JavaScript... Or maybe there is more to it. Maybe knowing the location could change the theme colors and image depending on the weather. I counted 10 Gmail themes that ask for the user location - Tree, Beach, Mountains, Summer Ocean, Phantasea, Graffiti, Planets, Bus Stop, Ninja and Tea House.

Which Gmail theme did I selected?

I chose the Shiny theme if you really want to know. No cartoony or cute characters for me... I like my screen to be clear of distracting elements. I could have stuck with the default but I had to try this out - at least for a few days.
Candy and Tea House were too "girly" for me (if you know what I mean) and Terminal was such an eye sore (though it did bring back memories of the "good ol' days"). The Planets theme was one that I did consider using - loved its night time photograph - but decided against.

How can you make your own Gmail themes?

So you want to create your own Gmail theme? I guess a lot of you would want to do that... right? As of now, I did not find an option through which you could make a Gmail theme with your own images and colors. However, knowing Google, they might just provide us options for creating themes using our own images and colors in the future. If Google always listens to user feedback, here is one from me - Could you please let us create our own themes... pretty please?
Thinking about it a little more - what is involved in creating a Gmail theme? I understand that some themes are more complex than others, especially those that involve changing images depending on time when the user logs in. The simpler themes would require just the background image and colors settings for the tabs and links. I may be proved wrong, but the day is not far when Google offers us the feature of creating our own Gmail themes with our photographs - yes, even those corny ones of the pet goldfish.
Update:On February 20, 2009, Google rolled a custom Gmail theme creator. You can now choose colors and create your own Gmail theme.

Cannot see Gmail themes - missing from account

If you don't see Gmail themes in your account, rest assured you haven't been discriminated against. The themes feature are not missing... you are not using the correct Gmail version or working from an unsupported web browser - read Gmail themes missing/absent from account to know more.

Gmail storage space - store emails and files

Gmail was launched with 1GB storage space. This was a big leap forward because other online email services at that time (April of 2004) were providing a fraction of this - 2-4MB to 10MB (one hundredth of a GB) at the most. It took Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, the two most popular web based email services, a bit of time to match that offer. In fact, I was surprised that an Indian portal (Rediff) increased the account storage to 1GB on rediffmail almost immediately.
Yahoo! Mail upped the storage to 100MB from 4MB and then to 250MB. The 1GB Yahoo! Mail account space was available only after a year. The storage space from Microsoft's online email service, Hotmail, was only 2MB when Gmail was brought out. It soon jumped to 25MB and then to 250MB.

Towards unlimited storage - Gmail left behind in the race?

In May 2007, Yahoo!, as a part of their anniversary offer, announced that all Yahoo! Mail users would be getting unlimited space. The wise amongst us know that "unlimited space" does not exist but it was a smart move by Yahoo! The point is, instead of specifying the amount of space, Yahoo! simply made it unlimited - isn't it easier (and more impressive) to tell everyone that we offer limitless storage instead of 10GB, 20GB or whatever?
Unlimited space is complete nonsense - there is no such thing! If you tally the storage on all the hard disks in the world, you would still reach quantifiable figure. Yahoo!, however, knows that majority of the account holders would only use a fraction of a couple of GBs. Even the most prolific of Yahoo! Mail users would never be able to have hundreds of GBs of storage space.
In fact, a lot many Indian portals have jumped on the unlimited bandwagon - Zapak.com, rediffmail.com, indiatimes.com - read more about this on a comparison of unlimited email accounts from Indian portals.

Infinity + plan - Unlimited storage on Gmail

Does Google offer unlimited space on Gmail? Quick answer - NO!
Google has instead opted to increase the Gmail account storage everyday day by a little amount as per their Infinity + plan. From the 4th of January 2008, each Gmail account holder gets an additional 3.3MB of storage. However, this metric will probably vary because Google has clearly mentioned that it all depends on the available space. At the time of writing, I had a little more 7GB on Gmail.
If you load the Gmail homepage , you can see the storage space meter ticking away to kingdom come - refer image below.

Will Google ever offer unlimited storage on Gmail? Again, the answer is probably no but, hey, I don't make the rules around there. So, knowing Google and their do-no-evil policy, I suppose unlimited Gmail space would not be on offer as "unlimited" is misleading.

Want more space on Gmail?

If you are running short of available space on Gmail, you can always get more by shelling out a small amount. Google's Premier Edition gets you 25GB of space per account on Gmail and 10GB plus 500MB per user on Google Sites storage. Read more for a quick comparison of the premier and standard editions.

How to make the best use of Gmail storage space

Most of us think Gmail account space is for storing emails and their attached files. However, nifty applications are available on the web that will turn your Gmail account into an additional hard disk - an online account for storing files. To know about these, read store files on Gmail.

Unlimited space on Gmail - When will Google be offering this?

Google had launched Gmail with 1GB storage space which was "more than 100 times" what most other free webmail services offered - Gmail Press release. This generated a lot of excitement and to add that extra spice, Gmail email accounts were available only through special invitations from Google employees and current Gmail account holders - I wonder who had the first Gmail account - what is one of the founders... Sergey Brin or Larry Page?

Infinity+1 and unlimited space on Gmail

In the April of 2005, Google started increasing the storage space of Gmail accounts as part of their "Infinity+1" storage plan. And the inbox space has been increasing ever since. I have a little under 6GB at the time of writing and come January 4th 2008, 3.3MB will be added per day to the inbox and this is ten times higher than the present rate of increase in storage space - Gmail storage increases.
However, ever since the dramatic launch of Gmail, the competition has wizened, so to say. Presumably, they think it was the 1GB space offering that was Gmail's trump card and probably they are correct! Two of the main competitors - Yahoo! and AOL - have increased the storage space to unlimited.
So with competition providing unlimited storage space, when will Google be offering the same to Gmail users?
Probably never (though I would love to be proved wrong)! And here are my reasons:

• Unlimited space doesn't exist
  If you combine all the hard disks in the world you will still get a real number so the unlimited term is misleading.
  Yes, if someone wants to utilize the "unlimited storage", I guess one would be allowed to if they potentially can!
• Google's "Do No Evil" policy
  You will never get unlimited space on Gmail because it contradicts Google's all important "Do No Evil" policy. OK, using the word "unlimited" is not exactly evil but it is definitely wrong!
• It's the features that would play a winning role
  Storage space was indeed an important factor at the time of Gmail launch, however, I suppose it would be the "features" and "ease of use" that would ultimately play an important role in this fight. Gmail still has great features and that too for free - POP3, IMAP, unobtrusive advertisements, preview of attachments, powerful search and spam detector.

Unlimited storage space is simply a marketing strategy

Based on the above three reasons, I don't think Google is much bothered about competition offering unlimited space. Gmail has already taken a big bite off the competitors and I guess we will continue to see new unique features being added to Gmail as time goes by - the latest was IMAP access. However, they would continue to increase the inbox storage space as noted above. If you are hungry for more space, you can always go to the competition and lose the cool features of Gmail or simply opt for a paid Gmail account.
Unlimited storage space from Yahoo! and AOL is a simple marketing stunt; no doubts! And this comes from a Yahoo! executive who told the Wall Street Journal that providing unlimited space was to remove the perception that Yahoo! offers less than Google.
Four Indian web companies also offer unlimited space for email accounts - Rediff.com, Sify.com, Zapak.com and Indiatimes.com. I don't think they pose a threat to Google or any of the other major free email service providers (MSN, Yahoo! and AOL) because they are localized and are not up to par.

Gmail usage - statistics of Google's free email service

April 1, 2004 was a momentous day of sorts for all web users - Google unveiled their free email service called Gmail (known as Google Mail in the United Kingdom and Germany). At launch, Gmail accounts came with 1GB of storage space way above what the competition was offering - Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail were providing a measly 2-4MB of storage. Also, though it was free, you needed to get a Gmail invite from an existing user to create your account. The invites and the 1GB space created a huge demand for the free email service - at one time, these invitations were being sold for more than $100 on ebay.com.
Now after more than 4.5 years, has Gmail been able to eat into the competition's market share? We know that Gmail usage has been growing but how does that compare with other popular services? The two popular email services at the time of Gmail launch were Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail (now called Windows Live Hotmail). How have they reacted to the Google Gmail threat?

Usage statistics for online email service providers

Firstly, there are no direct data on the usage statistics of online email service provider. Because of the absence of clear numbers and figures, one needs to depend on different but related data and this leads to a lot of gray area. However, educated guesses can be made based on information on web site usage and email client statistics from various sources.

The Hitwise top 20 web sites in the US (Not global data)

The Hitwise list of top 20 web sites in the US can provide pointers to the usage of online email services including Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail.

Rank	Web site	Market share
1	mail.yahoo.com	4.64%
4	www.yahoo.com	3.7%
5	mail.live.com	1.81%
7	search.yahoo.com	1.52%
9	www.msn.com	1.19%
11	www.gmail.com	0.86%
14	mail.aol.com	0.43%
16	search.msn.com	0.41%
18	my.yahoo.com	0.4%
19	news.yahoo.com	0.39%

Web sites from the Hitwise list that can be included in this discussion are listed above along with their rankings.
mail.yahoo.com comes up on top, but also in the list are other URLs from the Yahoo! domain including www.yahoo.com, search.yahoo.com, my.yahoo.com and news.yahoo.com. It's highly possible that people first go to the Yahoo! homepage (or my.yahoo.com) and then to their mail account.
Three Microsoft properties - mail.live.com, www.msn.com, and search.msn.com - also figure in the top 20. Interestingly Gmail and AOL are at number 11 and 14 respectively. The point I'm trying to make is that this data clearly provides us with at least the rankings - Yahoo! Mail is #1 followed by Hotmail (Windows Live Mail), Gmail and AOL. Remember this data is only from the United States.

A comparison by Techcrunch

Some time back, Techcrunch, released solid numbers for Yahoo! Mail, Live Hotmail and Gmail usage. They put Gmail in the third position - the figures of the other two were almost equal and five times higher than Gmail. However, this study is old - we know how quickly things change on the Internet - and there are two reasons why I think the numbers mentioned do not hold water: Techcrunch does not cite the source and the numbers are before Gmail was opened to the public. Gmail's traffic went up 17% after it was opened on the 7th of February 2007 - no special invitations were required to create a Gmail account.

Fingerprint email client usage statistics

The Fingerprint email client usage statistics (snapshot below) was performed on a little less than 3 million email recipients which are broken into "business recipients" and "consumer recipients" (and rightly so because there are big differences).
Once again Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail come up as the two most popular services (almost equal in their share) with Gmail a distant third. Please note, people using Gmail through email clients like Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail will be added in the "Outlook" numbers.

So what is Gmail's rank?

In conclusion, one would not be wrong in placing Yahoo! Mail as the most popular email service followed closely by Hotmail (Windows Live Hotmail). Gmail usage is way behind these two biggies and might be a distant third.
Though Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail were slow to react the huge inbox offering of Gmail, they have sort of maintained their position as leaders. One needs to remember that users grow fond of a service and would not change their email address unless the service really sucks!

Configure your Gmail account on Outlook Express

This article provides step-by-step instructions on how to configure your Gmail account on Outlook Express so that you access it using POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3); Or in layman's terms, how you can receive your Gmail emails and store them on your system.
The POP access was allowed on Gmail accounts almost from the start of the service... and the best thing... it's free!

Step 1 - Enable the POP option at your Gmail account

Log in at your Gmail account. Click on the Settings link on the top-right of the page.

Now click on the Forwarding and POP tab.

In the POP Download section, you can enable POP for all email messages or only for mail that you will receive henceforth.

From a drop down menu, you can select what you want to do with the message once it is downloaded to Outlook Express on your system. I suggest that you let it lie on your Gmail account or archive it since there is so much of space available on Gmail.

Click on the Save Changes button when you are done.

Step 2 - Configuring the Outlook Express Email client

Start Outlook Express. Go to Tool -> Accounts.

In the Internet Accounts pop-up window, click on Add -> Mail

You now need to give a name to this account. I'm going to put WebDevelopersNotes as the name (my email address is webdevelopersnotes[at]gmail.com). Click on the Next button.

You will now be asked your Gmail email address. Be sure to enter this correctly and then click on the Next button.

The next step is to provide the Outlook Express email client the incoming and outgoing email server details for Gmail. These are:
Incoming Email Server: pop.gmail.com
Outgoing Email Server: smtp.gmail.com
Make sure that you have selected the POP3 option in the My incoming email server is. Click on the Next button when done.

We will now enter the username and password of your Gmail account in Outlook Express. Click on the Remember password checkbox if it's not already checked. Click on the Next button when done.

By this time you have given all the information to Outlook Express to set up your Gmail account on the program and so you get a congratulatory message. Click on the Finish button.
However, we are not done yet and need to configure a few more things.
Double-click on the Gmail email account you have just configured in Outlook Express. You can also select it and click on the "Properties" button. Refer image below.

The "Properties window" is now displayed. Go to the Advanced tab and check the checkbox in front of This server requires a secure connection (SSL). The Incoming mail (POP3): field automatically changes to a value of 995. Click on the Apply button when done. Refer image below esp. the portion marked in the red box.

It is now time for you to test the Gmail account configured in Outlook Express. If you had selected the option of enabling POP at Gmail for only new messages, send a test message to your Gmail account from another email address.

Problems with Gmail configuration on Outlook Express

The above procedure works beautifully for most people. However, some are just not able to send email from the newly configured Gmail account on Outlook Express; they have no problem in receiving messages.
This issue can quickly be ironed out by changing the Outgoing (SMTP) settings. Under the "Advanced" tab, put 465 as the server port number and check "This server requires a secure connection (SSL)" - please refer image below.

Lastly, move to the "Servers" tab and check "My server requires authentication".

Gmail on Windows Live Mail - Setup and configuration

Multiple email accounts can be set up on Windows Live Mail including Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!Mail and other email addresses from your ISP or web sites. On this page I show you how to add a Gmail account on Windows Live Mail and store all those emails on your computer.

Enabling POP3 on the Gmail account

The very first thing you need to do is enabling POP3 access of your Gmail account.
Open a browser window and log in at your account. Click the "Settings" link on the top right.

Now click the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" link which opens the different options for forwarding, POP download and IMAP access.

In the POP download section, choose the option of enabling POP for all mails or only for those that arrive from now on. Also select the option of whether you want to keep the email message in Gmail's inbox, archive or delete it. Once you have made your choices, make sure you click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom.

Adding the Gmail account on Windows Live Mail

Now that you have configured your Gmail account for POP access, it's time to add and setup your Gmail account on Windows Live Mail. Start the email client (if not already running).
Click on the "Add an e-mail account" button/link located left (refer image below) or go to "Tool" -> "Accounts", click on the "Add" button and select "E-mail Account" in the "Add an account" window.

In the popup, enter your full email address, your password (do keep the "Remember password" box checked), your display name and hit the "Next" button. Yes, it is that simple - you don't need to configure any servers manually.

Windows Live Mail will then inform you that you need to enable POP at your Gmail account - but we have already done that in the first step above so you can simply click on the "Finish" button. By the way, if you are a prolific user of Gmail, I also suggest you set it as the default account by checking "Set this account as the default mail account".

Your Gmail account will now be setup on Windows Live Mail email client and will appear with its five folders - Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, Junk e-mail and Deleted Items.

Common problem - Gmail setup on Windows Live Mail: cannot send emails

One common problematic issue arises after the Gmail account set up on Windows Live Mail which is sending emails. This, as you can understand, is quite serious hitch because an email account that is not able to send out emails in quite useless. Fortunately, this issue can easily be solved by tweaking the Gmail account properties in Windows Live Mail client. If you too are facing this problem, refer the section on configuration of the Gmail account below.
The source of the problem is the blocking of outgoing email server port 25 is blocked by most ISPs. The solution is to change this outgoing port number to 465 or 587 which should solve the problem for good.

Configuration of Gmail account on Windows Live Mail

If you are not able to send out emails from the Gmail account added to Windows Live Mail email client, you need to change or configure its properties to reflect the correct email outgoing server port number. To do this, right-click on your Gmail account in Windows Live Mail and select "Properties" from the drop down.

Click on the "Advanced" tab to bring it to the front. In the " Outgoing mail (SMTP)" text field, enter 465 or 587. Click on the "Apply" button followed by the "OK" button. FYI, you can also configure the various options under "Delivery" such as removing the emails from the Gmail server once you delete them from Windows Live Mail or opt in to leave the emails on the server forever.

Lastly, make sure that "My server requires authentication" option is checked under the "Servers" tab.

Change language of Gmail interface

Gmail, the free email service from Google, was launched on April 1, 2004 with tons of features including 1GB storage space, super quick search functionality, 10MB email attachments and many more. The service, which is still in beta, is now the third most popular web based email provider (according to some stats).
The Gmail interface is available in more than 50 languages as of now and I'm very proud to notice that 10 of these are from India (shows the great diversity of this great country). English comes in two variants -UK and US.

• Indian languages for Gmail interface
• Hindi - my grandma tried this out
• Gujarati
• Marathi
• Urdu - Oh yes, Urdu usage is prevalent in India.
• Bengali
• Oriya
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Kannada
• Malayalam

How to change the Gmail language

To change the language of Gmail interface, click on the "Settings" link close to the top-right - refer image below.

Ensure you are under the "General" tab and in the Language section (the very first one), select the language you want for the Gmail interface from the drop down. Finally hit the "Save Changes" button near the bottom. Refer the image below for further assistance.

By the way, the "Show all language options" link on the right of the drop down lets you switch right-to-left editing support on or off.
You can change the language any time you want. Here is how the interface looks like in Hindi.

The people at Gmail keep adding new languages over time, so if your local lingo isn't available yet, it might just be on the anvil!

Gmail versions - Basic HTML view and the standard view

Many users are not aware that Gmail comes in two versions. It's fine if you belong to that group because such technicalities can be put aside as long as you find the service useful. However, it's always a good idea to at least know all the things Gmail has to offer. This article provides a brief introduction to the two Gmail versions so that you can choose the one which is more suited to your needs.

Basic HTML view - the simpler Gmail version

The basic HTML Gmail view is the older of the two versions and it's primarily for people on slower internet connections such as a dialup. Many bells and whistles like Gmail themes are missing from the standard view because these fancy features tend to make the web page heavy, slowing the functionality and page display. Here is a little tip - when there is a heavy download in progess (via a Torrent, for example) and you want to simultaneously check email on Gmail, use this version because it will load faster saving you precious time.

The standard Gmail view - the Advanced version

The standard Gmail view puts all the Gmail features at your disposal - Gmail themes, dynamic drop down menus, rich-text formatting for composing emails and many more. Though this results in file-size-heavy web pages, people on broadband and fast internet connections will hardly notice the difference.


Please note that these two versions differ mainly in features that take time to load such as images, dynamic drop down menus. The basic functionality of composing and reading emails remains the same; though rich-text formatting is absent from the basic version.

OK, this is where things get slightly more complicated. The standard Gmail view itself comes in two versions - newer and older. Hardly worth mentioning, but the older version is devoid of many features like chat, themes, offline view etc.
Gmail lets you shift back and forth across standard and basic HTML views by clicking the link of the other version. This link is typically present at the bottom of the page (in the footer). For example, I use the standard Gmail view (newer version) and have links to the older standard as well as the basic HTML versions at the bottom.
Conclusion: use the basic HTML version on slow internet connections or when you have a big file download in progress and shift to the fancier version for added functionality when connected through broadband.

Gmail Google's Free 1GB Email Account

Google caused a great deal of excitement when they announced that they would be offering a 1GB space email account service called Gmail. This new service offering from the most popular search engine was surprising and there was a lot of speculation during the first few days as to why Google wanted to get in the fray - after all we have tons and tons of free email service providers along with the big guns, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Lycos etc.
Gmail opens up for all - Anyone can now get a Gmail address
February of 2007 is going to be remembered as the month when the gates of Gmail were opened for everyone. Read more about this and get yourself an account if you don't have one already.
Gmail opens for everyone - get your free Gmail account and also Configure Gmail account in Outlook Express email client.

A note on the Google search engine

We all have come to love Google's search engine. In the days of "super crowded" search engine homepages, Google's single field search form was simplicity personified - And we all loved it, didn't we? After all, if you want to search for something on the net all what was required was one text field (in which the users type their search phrase) and a submit button. This idea had not struck other search engines and directories (tongue in cheek remark). All of them had loads and loads of other stuff like banners, news, email account login fields, graphics etc. on the search pages. [And most of them still do!]
In any case, Google's idea of providing a very simple net search interface was a hit. The page had no advertising - just one search text field and a couple of search buttons. More importantly, the search results generated by the Google search engine, were as good (if not better) that others. The popularity of Google grew and grew and now it is the most popular search engine on the Internet. However, is the most popular site? Not according to the surveys - www.comscore.com. You can also check how the Google site ranks at Alexa - www.Alexa.com.

Why has Google come up with the Gmail service?

Sites like Yahoo!, MSN, and still very popular. A reason for this can be the other services offered by these sites, such as Chat programs, free email accounts etc. I guess, Google would have understood that a free email account is something that will always attract net surfers. However, there was loads of competition and so Google came up with a shiner - 1 free 1GB email account. In addition to this, Gmail accounts were not open to all. Only those with special invitations could get a Gmail account. Thus, Google employees and other Gmail account holders can invite someone to sign-up for an account. The exclusivity of Gmail has really made it special! There are Gmail invitations being sold on ebay.com (a somewhat cheap business idea, in my opinion).
The reasons for offering a 1GB email account by Google are clear - Google wants to be the most popular site on the Internet and wants to beat all email service providers. But how will Gmail help Google in generating more business? After all, 1GB is a lot of space. Actually, with disk space becoming cheaper each day (and prices are predicted to plummet further), 1GB is not very expensive. Google plans to deliver ads (via its Adwords/Adsense technology) on Gmail. [Click here if you want to read more about Google's Adsense technology]
Adsense would scan the email and list probable keywords. Based on these keywords, the ad would be displayed. Thus, while reading an email, you would see ads relevant to the contents of the email. This is a blow to the privacy laws? If you look at it one way, it is a major invasion on privacy, but what the hell, you do get an excellent online email service from one of the web giants.
Looking for a free Gmail email address?
Now that Gmail is open for everyone, it's easy to get an email address for yourself, your business or your dog. Refer get Gmail email address for step by step instructions and helpful screenshots.

Free 1GB Email Accounts

The new GMail, Google's 1GB free email account has prompted other email service providers to increase the INBOX space they offer on their free email accounts. Gmail email accounts, as of now, can only be opened via special invitations. Employees and existing GMail users can invite a new user for a Gmail account.
Update: Gmail email accounts now come with more than 1GB email accounts - it was 2.8GB and increasing the last time I checked. It seems Google is now bent on killing the competition.
So till the time someone takes pity on your plight and sends you a Gmail invite (this rhymes!), you can still get an 1GB free email account with one of the other three listed below.
Get a Gmail email address without an invite
You can now get a Gmail account without special invitations from existing users because Gmail is now open to everyone. Details are available on Get your Gmail account - service open for everyone. Gmail also comes with an almost 3GB INBOX space...
GMail
The Gmail email service comes from one of the biggest web companies - Google! And that's the best recommendation one can have for a service. You can know more about GMail here or read through the list of its fabulous features.
UPDATE: Gmail opens up for all - Anyone can now get a Gmail address
Now any one can gget a Gmail account; no special invitations are required. However, existing users can still send invites to people. Read more about this and get yourself an account if you don't have one already.
Gmail opens for everyone - get your free Gmail account and also Configure Gmail account in Outlook Express email client.
RediffMail
A local player here in India has held the bull by the horns in the race for providing the largest space for free email accounts. Rediffmail is a very good email service provider. My estimate based on the email addresses of my contacts, is that more than 30% of net users in India have and regularly use their Rediffmail accounts - and that's a very large percentage.
Rediffmail provides 1GB free email account - its punch line: "Keep all the mails you want, for as long as you want".
Rediffmail.com
Walla!Me
A 1GB email account. More information on ther web site http://www.walla.com. You can go directly to the sign-up page here - friends.walla.com.
Update: Walla wants to stay in the fray. Email accounts now come with 3GB of space.
Spymac
Spymac is a site for Macintosh users and has started to offer 1GB space with their email accounts. In addtion to the 1GB email account, Spymac members also get 100 MB Webspace, iCal Hosting, 250MB Photo Storage, Blog, Forum and Gallery, Community and more...
www.spymac.com
Hotmail
Hotmail has finally opened its eyes. You now get a 1GB storage space on Hotmail accounts along with customizable spam (junk e-mail) filters, virus scanning and cleaning etc. However, I am quite sure that several people (pissst... including my wife) have stopped using their Hotmail email accounts. Microsoft, I guess it's been rather late, huh?
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! would have thrown their weapons at Google' feet at the end of the search engine war (???), but they have always taken their online email service very seriously. Most of the Yahoo! Mail users I know still use their accounts. In addition to the 1GB storage space, the email service from Yahoo! comes with SpamGuard (to protect your account from spammers and junk emails), mobile phone alerts, message size of upto 10MB etc. Yahoo Mail! is still a tough competitor to Gmail.

Online Free Email Accounts

Want a reliable and quick online email account? And don't want to pay for it? On this page you will find some services that allow you to create an email account for free. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of such free email account services and the ones I have listed are the ones I use regularly.
GMail, Google's 1GB free email account has prompted other service providers to increase the space they offer on their free email accounts. However, Gmail email accounts, as of now, can only be opened via special invitations. Only, the employees and existing GMail users can invite a new user to open a Gmail account. This little thing adds exclusitivity to Gmail... doesn't it.
UPDATE:
Gmail accounts are now available for everyone. You can sign up for a free Gmail account and don't need a special invitation from an existing user. Plus the mailbox size when I last checked was close to 3GB. Read more about this on Gmail opens up for all - Anyone can now get a Gmail address. I also suggest you configure your Gmail account in Outlook Express email client (if you use it). Step-by-step instructions can be found at configuring Gmail account in Outlook Express email client.
Yahoo! Mail
Offers some great features in its free email account package.
- 1GB of email storage
- Message size up to 10MB
- Powerful protection against spam and viruses
You can find more information here. I have found Yahoo! Mail quite good and coupled with the "Yahoo! Messenger", it's a good way to communicate and keep in touch with your friends/clients.
Yahoo! also offers Yahoo! Mail Plus with 2GB mailbox size and 20 MB attachments.
Click here for Yahoo! Mail.
Hotmail
Another favorite of mine only because I have been using it since a long long time and most of my contacts are on MSN. However, Hotmail offers very little space (as compared to the others listed here).
As of today, 30^th July 2006, a free email account with Hotmail gets you 25 megabytes (MB) of storage space at sign-up and you can send messages up to 1 MB each, including attachments.
Web surfers from the 50 United States, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico can get 250MB of inbox space.
Click here for Hotmail.
RediffMail
A local player here in India has held the bull by the horns in the race for providing the largest space for free email accounts. Rediffmail is one of the very good email service providers. My estimate, based on the email addresses of my contacts, is that more than 40% of net users in India have and regularly use their Rediffmail accounts - and that's a very large percentage.
Rediffmail provides 1GB free email account - its punch line: "Keep all the mails you want, for as long as you want".
rediffmail.com
Mail.com
10MB mailbox
4MB attachments
Ads Free option
Wide variety of premium upgrades
Mail.com
Lycos
Provides 5MB of storage free, plus spam fighting tools.
Lycos.com

Rediffmail and its 1GB email account

One fine day when I checked my Rediffmail free email account, I just couldn't believe my eyes 00...
Sitting right there above the login form fields was a small message displaying 1GB INBOX space for Rediffmail email accounts!!! Rediffmail also has a paid version for their email service, which I guess has had a reasonable amount of success, so I thought that this 1GB is a good idea to gather more paid members. However, to my utter surprise when I entered by INBOX and on a hunch checked the "Storage Space" I found that this 1GB space is for the free accounts. I almost fell off my chair!!! <craaaash>

Rediff and Rediffmail

For those who don't know about Rediffmail, it has been one of the premier web email providers in India. Their portal (www.rediff.com) is also very popular - at least I use its cricket section whenever I need to check scores. Rediff was one of the first to launch a portal of stature in India. Riding the Internet wave (to use a cliché), several other companies made their online presence. There was Indiainfo.com, which had advertised in all forms all over the country and is now forgotten by most of us! Indiatimes.com, a portal launched by the Times of India newspaper group has also been a success primarily because it has a very good offline medium to advertise - the Time of India newspaper... And there was Indya (www.indya.com). All these portals offered free email accounts.
A few years back Rediffmail came up with a brilliant idea to segregate itself from the pack. It started to advertise its free email account service - their punch line was Lightning fast email and it indeed was! At that time, net users in India used popular email services like Hotmail, Yahoo!, Snap etc. and most of us accessed the Internet through dial-up connections that were very slow. Accessing the INBOX at Hotmail or Yahoo! was so frustrating as it used to take so much time. I guess Rediff would have done a consumer survey and received a feedback that people needed to access email over quick servers. With their lightning fast email servers Rediffmail gave what everyone in India wanted - fast access to online email.
The very idea of advertising a free email service and spending money to upgrade it was something that other portals had not thought about. Rediffmail's competition too advertised their services but the ads mentioned different services offered by the portal and did not put emphasis on one particular service.
The Lightning fast Rediffmail gained a loyal following.
This was followed by the email over mobile phone service from Rediffmail. Users could access the Rediffmail INBOX via their cell phones.
Nowadays, since, most net surfers in India use either cable or DSL accessing the Internet over fast connections is no longer a problem. So Rediffmail comes up with another beauty - offering free 1GB email account. Obviously, this step has been prompted by the release of Gmail, but the fact that an Indian company has taken this step is something that all Indians should be proud of!

Testing the Rediffmail 1GB

I sent four emails to my Rediffmail account with fairly large attachments. Using DSL, I was able to download these emails back to my computer in seconds - 12.9MB, 1.1MB, 4.4MB and 7.4Mbtook 119, 10, 32 and 72 seconds respectively. So Rediffmail is not only lightning fast it also provides a huge storage space.
You can read about the new Rediffmail features here - http://mail.rediff.com/learnmore.htm.
You can check up the other 1GB free email service providers here.
Manish Sharma - 21^st July 2004.

Online Email Accounts Free
1 GB Email Accounts
GMail Googles free 1 GB email account

What is Hotmail - an online email service

Hotmail is a web based email service owned by Microsoft, the IT giant. It is now called Windows Live Hotmail and is placed under the Live.com umbrella and aggressively promoted by the company. The service offers both free and paid web based email accounts - the paid accounts are known as Hotmail Plus cost $19.95 per year and come with added benefits such as increased storage space, larger email attachments allowed, no account expiration and, yes, no ads.

Hotmail history - the story of successful online entrepreneurship

Hotmail, founded by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia, was launched on the 4th of July (US independence day) 1996 and offered free email accounts that could be accessed from any computer, anywhere in the world, as long as it had an active internet connection. Hotmail was probably the first to offer such a service. FYI, the symbolism of the launch date was "freedom" from ISP based email service. By the end of next year, Hotmail had 8.5 million users and was bought by Microsoft (December 1997) for an astronomical sum of $400 million. This means each of the founders, ideally walked away with $200 million apiece - not a pretty bad sum for one and a half years of work.

Hotmail name changes - the brand wins

The name of the service was chosen because it contained the letters HTML, the language in which all web pages are written and to stress upon this the original spelling was "HoTMaiL".
The Hotmail brand was very strong. It had a unique quality and a superb recall value.
After the acquisition by Microsoft, the service was renamed MSN Hotmail and went through many changes in the logo.

At one time, Microsoft had decided to get rid of the "Hotmail" brand and call the service Windows Live Mail but this confused users and the idea was quickly dropped. Such was the "power" of Hotmail brand - catchy and unforgettable. The web based email service is now known as Windows Live Hotmail and we pray for a stop to additional modifications and changes.

Global reach and a growth in popularity

Hotmail's popularity received a major boost after the acquisition by Microsoft in December 1997. From 8.5 million, the user base jumped to 30 million by February of 1999 which is like more than 3 times increase in a little over a year. Microsoft was also responsible for spreading and localization of the service to different markets around the world. Hotmail soon became the biggest web based email service provider.

Hotmail statistics and market share

At the time of writing, Windows Live Hotmail is probably no longer the number one provider of web based email accounts. That slot belongs to Yahoo! Mail. However, there are no concrete statistics and numbers available and, furthermore, different sources quote different figures. Attempts are made to determine the market share of the most popular email services (Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and Gmail) based on web site usage data, which leads us to a gray area. However, most agree Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Mail claim the top two spots with similar market share while Gmail's usage statistics puts it a distant third.

Hotmail - the present status

Windows Live Hotmail, presently available in 35 languages, offers 5GB of free storage with up to 10MB attachment size. You can sort emails in folders (a feature missing on Gmail) and pick a theme to change the colors and images of the interface - customize and personalize your Hotmail account with themes. You also get enhanced security, a spell checker when you compose email messages and much more. The service does not show ads (both text and image advertisements are absent) in the interface - ads are attached to the bottom of outgoing messages in the signature. Forwarding is allowed only to email accounts of Microsoft properties (live.com, other hotmail.com etc.) and, though, there has been a hint of POP access for the free accounts, it's still not in place.
Update #1: Some Hotmail users have mentioned seeing ads at the very top of the interface. But I suppose this is not so common.
Update #2: Free Hotmail POP access is available in some countries. The company is rolling out this feature gradually.

Downloading Hotmail emails

Since no forwarding (read above) and POP access is permitted on free Hotmail account, the only way to download Hotmail emails to your computer and preserve a copy is to use another Microsoft product - Windows Live Mail. This is a free email program that runs on Windows XP and Vista operating system. You can follow the steps described in Hotmail set up to configure your account and download your emails.

Get unlimited storage email account... and its free!

Earlier this year, Yahoo! announced unlimited storage for each email account. The present inbox space was 1GB. This was the anniversary offer from the popular online portal. I am sure this would have made most users very happy and I am not sure why... only a very tiny insignificant number would ever utilize more than a couple of gigabytes. However, the unlimited storage was coupled with the new and slicker version of Yahoo! Mail with a cool interface and increased ease of use with drag-n-drop features.
Not to be outdone, several other online companies threw away the shackles and started to provide unlimited storage for their online email account service and included in this list were three popular Indian companies, Rediff.com, Indiatimes.com and Zapak.com.

Unlimited storage in a limited world

There is obviously no such thing as unlimited space. After all if you combine all the hard drives in the world, you will arrive at a real number. Does this mean all those companies offering unlimited storage on their email accounts are lying? Well...
Unlimited storage email account has a better ring to it than 10 Gb or some other figure... Yes, it sounds much better. Additionally, I don't think anyone would be able to use this limitless storage as it would require an infinite period of time... right?

List of online services offering unlimited email storage

Yahoo! Mail - the one who started it all

Unlimited storage space on Yahoo! Mail accounts was an anniversary offer.
www.yahoo.com

Mail2World

Large email attachments, email-2-sms alerts, 2000 domain names, full spam and virus protection in addition to unlimited storage.
www.mail2world.com

AOL Mail

Free email account with unlimited storage space from this popular online service.
webmail.aol.com

Indiatimes.com

Unlimited storage, fast and simple mailing with an email rewards program.
mail.indiatimes.com/

Rediff.com

Rediffmail Unlimited Storage with lightning fast inbox access and functionality.
www.Rediff.com

Zapakmail.com

From India's leading gaming portal comes a nice package - an unlimited storage email account.
Zapakmail

Sify.com

One of the most popular, and possibly also the first, Internet Service Providers in India gives away unlimited storage with its email accounts.
www.sify.com
The last four online email services are from India. I suppose rediff.com was the first true portal from the country. Indiatimes.com is an online service from the famous Times of India newspaper. Zapak is a relatively new service and touts itself as India's largest gaming portal. It comes from one of the largest business companies in India - the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. In another article - unlimited email storage space from Indian companies - I try to determine how serious these three are of their online free email service. Taking the Yahoo! Mail as a benchmark, I evaluate them on several aspects. It's an interesting read and am sure you will enjoy it.

How to get a free Gmail email address for yourself

Step 2 - Enter all the required information in the "Create an Account" online form

After you click on the signup link, you shall be shown the Create an Account form with several fields that need your inputs.

Do not worry if the screen displayed to you and the screenshot image on the left are not exactly the same.
You now need to start filling the form. Once you have entered your first and last names, it is time to choose a login name. This is important as your login name will decide the email address you will get, and in case of a Gmail account, would be your-chosen-login-name@gmail.com. So be sure to pick a login name, also called the username, with care.

Step 3 - How to choose a login name or username for your email address

Choosing a login name is part art and part common sense. And because it determines what your email address will be, I suggest you spend a little time over it. Since, email addresses need to be unique which means no two people in the world can have the same address, there is no guarantee that your preferred login name would be available - more on this below. The following is my advice and suggestions on how to choose a login or username.
First check if you can get a login name of your name, firstname, lastname, as firstname-lastname or the more popular, firstname.lastname (yes, the period sign can be used in a login name). You can also try out firstnamelastname. Getting a Gmail email address of your name is indeed very fortunate because of the sheer number of subscribers to the service. However, if you have a relatively uncommon name, you do stand a good chance; I don't even try this because mine is such a common name - both my first name and lastname.
If your name doesn't work out, seek to couple your name with your profession - such as john.webdeveloper.
Your login name needs to be catchy and at the same time describe you so people are able to recall it without much difficulty and associate it with you. For instance, if you are a docile accountant from a small town, choosing "hells-angels" as the login name would be unwise. Rather, boone-accountant@gmail.com would be a lot better - FYI, Boone is a small town in North Carolina where I spend a day - lovely place.
I also advice against using numbers and digits in your login name unless, of course, they are a part of your company/business name. Again, you need to have a username that is easy to recall - you don't want people racking their brains and calling you up each time they forget your email address.
The availability of a login or user name can be verified by entering it first in the text field and hitting the check availability button.

Step 4 - Choosing a password for your email

Securing your Gmail email account with a strong> password is imperative. Think of the password as the key combination to your safe and you need to give the same amount of importance. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters with some digits thrown in would be a strong enough password. on the right of the textfields in which you enter your password a sort of meter would indicate the strength of the password.
You need to enter the password twice and you can leave the "Remember me on this computer" box unchecked.

Step 5 - Protecting your Gmail account with a security question

You now need to either select a security question from the drop down list or enter one - and you need to provide the answer. This additional security helps in getting your email account password if you forget it.
You may also enter a secondary email address but this field is optional, i.e. you can leave it blank. And rightly so, because if the Gmail address is your first email account you will not have an alternate email ID.

Step 6 - Word verification and confirmation

After providing your secondary email address - you can leave this blank, if you don't have one - and your location, you need to enter the characters that you see in the picture above the field in your form. Why is this required? So that Gmail knows the inputs are from a human being and not some automated program.
Now that everything is set, you can go through the Terms of Service and click on the "I accept. Create my account." button which will create your very own free Gmail account! Hurrah and congratulations.
To access your Gmail account in future, you need to go to the web site (links mentioned above) using a web browser and enter your username (login name) and password once again.

Solutions to some problems in getting your Gmail email address

Here are solutions to two common problems faced by account creators:

Login names of my choice are not available

Gmail is a very popular service and it is likely that the login names you choose are no longer available. The only solution to this dilemma is to keep trying to work with different permutations and combinations and also brainstorming to come up with new ideas.

Gmail Account Creation Failed

Occasionally you might get a screen like one below that displays an "Account Creation Failed" message.

The error message is a result of Gmail's spam filters working overtime! As mentioned on the help pages, Gmail refuses to create email addresses from a computer/connection if it exceeds a defined limit. Web users trying to create a lot of addresses at once, like a class or a group, may hit this limit. This is Gmail's way of protecting itself from users who they believe will be creating email addresses for spamming. The solution is to go through the process of getting your Gmail address from another computer using a different I.S.P.

Windows Live Mail and Gmail setup

This last bit is not for the beginner but rather a more experienced computer user.
Is your computer running the Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system? Did you know you can setup and configure your Gmail account in Windows Live Mail, the latest free email program from Microsoft? Click on that link to get step by step instructions.

Instructions on how to create a free Gmail account

This article describes in detail how to create a free Gmail account now that it's open for everyone. Step by step instructions are provided with related screenshots so that even beginners are able to create an email address for themselves using the free online webmail service from Google.
Creating a free Gmail account should take you less than 5 minutes, but since this article has been written for the beginner, I have split it in two. There are a couple of reasons for doing this. Firstly, though the process is quite simple, I don't want beginners to feel overwhelmed by the sheer length of the page because it not only has text but also screenshot images. Secondly, research has shown that text on lengthy pages is generally skimmed upon by surfers and not fully read; and there are some sections of the text, not directly related to the account creation, that would I suggest you read carefully.

What is Gmail?

Everyone, except those living under rocks for the past decade, know about Google and their free web based email called Gmail. The service was launched with great fanfare and was 100% free from the start but one could only create a Gmail account through special invites. If you knew someone who had a Gmail account, you could request them to send you this invitation... else, well, hard luck. In those early days, Gmail accounts were so coveted that invitations were being sold through ebay.com auctions. The high demand for Gmail email address was also because the service offered 1GB (gigabyte) storage space for emails at a time when all the others were providing only a fraction of that. Anyway, after a few years, Google opened the doors of Gmail for everyone... you didn't need a special invitation to create an account.
However, occasionally I still get feedback wanting to know how to create a free Gmail email address. So here goes...
Please note: At the time of writing, Gmail is still in beta, i.e. still underdevelopment, which goes a long way in proving how successful the free email service from Google has been. Web users prefer a beta service over more established and "developed" services like Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo!Mail.

Step 1 -Open the Gmail web site

To create your Gmail account you only need a web browser - the program you are using to read this page - and an internet connection.
You should now get to a page that looks something like the one below. At the time of writing Gmail offers a little over 7Gb of inbox space - though not unlimited but still more than enough to keep any prolific emailer occupied for years.

Click on the Sign up for Gmail link that I have circled in the screenshot and then proceed to the next page to get your free Gmail email address.

Gmail is now open for everyone - Get a Gmail account if you don't have one already!

I came to know of this yesterday, the 16th of February 2007 - the Gmail service is open for everyone. This good piece of news is from the Official Google Blog - From Gmal with >3. You no longer need a special invitation from existing Gmail user to get a taste of this fabulous service from Google.
Note: Existing Gmail members can still send invitations.

Does this mean that anyone can get a free Gmail account?

Yep! And, quick, here is the link - get your free Gmail account now!
Gmail still reads your incoming email and throws up contextual advertising but it also comes with almost 3GB of storage (it was 2.8 gigs when I last checked). Unfortunately it remains in beta which means the folks at Google (God bless them!) still haven't recognized it as a full service from their company. Pity, since most people I know cannot live without the gmail accounts.
IMPORTANT: Please refer a link below to open your Gmail account for free.

• Create a free Gmail account
• Get Gmail address
• Create a Gmail email address

Also, now that Gmail is open to everyone I wonder when will Google add its link on their homepage? Not that Gmail users don't know the URL... but... Can't Google add it in front of the "Personalized Home" link or even under the "more" link. Google... are you listening?

On further deliberation, I think I know why the Gmail link hasn't been added to the Google homepage. The clean look and no-nonsense Google homepage has been touted as one of the reasons for Google's success as a search engine (in addition to the very relevant results that were produced by search queries). So me thinks that Google is quite wary of making changes to its homepage and why not... who wants to mess up a good thing, right?
But it would surely have been a good idea if a "Gmail is open to everyone" or "Get your Gmail account" kind of message was put on the Google homepage for a few days. They did it for Picasa; why not Gmail?
Any way, the exclusivity that was associated with Gmail is now gone.

Are all the features of Gmail available to everyone?

Yes, and I don't think Google is going to scale down or remove any features. In fact, as they have proved in the past, the list of features and functionality of Gmail will only increase in the future. Here are some of the important features:

• Space and more space and more and more... It just keeps on getting bigger. Hotmail, Yahoo! and the rest - eat your heart out.
• Searching through your emails is a breeze and like lightning quick. Just enter your query and lo!
• Access from mobile phones: You can connect and view your email messages in the same familiar interface and even open attachments such as .pdf files, photos etc.
• View emails from other accounts at Gmail: You can add email accounts to Gmail and view all your messages at one place.
• Free POP access - And here are step by step instruction on how to configure your Gmail account on Outlook Express.

For those who want to know more, here is a list of all Gmail features.

Gmail opening for everyone - is this a positive step?

The very fact that anyone can now get a free Gmail account (just register... no need of special invitation), means that Google has had a fair bit of success with this service. The contextual advertising displayed beside the email messages has brought in money. On this point, the main issue that rocked Gmail when it started was privacy. Some people didn't like the idea of their emails being read by a program (as if that program understood anything). Any way, what they forgot was that all email services read messages when they scanned them for viruses... so there! At least , I was happier getting text ads that mattered than some bright and gaudy banner ad offering a free holiday or a great match or... you know what I mean.
Also, I feel that Google is looking at a bigger picture. A free Gmail account (that does not require special invitation) might prompt some prospects to go in for paid versions of Google Apps.
IMPORTANT - Want a free Gmail account?: Step-by-step instructions with helpful screenshots can be found in the article on create a free Gmail account.