Gmail’s making it easier and easier to do more and more from a single browser window. Often while writing an email we tend to search for something, now this involves opening a new tab, copying the content, then heading back to paste it. Gmail’s latest Labs feature consolidates that process with pop-up Google searches.
To enable this feature:
- Log-in to your Gmail account and click Settings near the top right corner. On the Settings page, select the Labs tab.
- On the Labs page, scroll down to the feature called Google Search. By default it is disabled – you just need to enable it. Save the setting.
When your inbox loads again you should see the Web Search box on the left hand sidebar. When you search using this box, the search results open up on the right side very similar to chat window opening up inside Gmail. First few results are displayed for the sake of size.Clicking on More… below the links displays the others.
Clicking on a search result opens up another window (or another tab) to take you to the URL page. If it’s the result you need, moving your mouse over the link back in Gmail reveals a pull-down menu that opens up a few more options to handle the link.
The options in the little dropdown depends on what you are doing while conducting the search.
- If you are reading a message – you can include the search result in the reply.
- If you are in the compose window – you can paste the search result or the result in the mail.
- If you are chatting with someone – send the result via chat.
The lab feature also saves your recent searches while a simple Clear removes them.