Today, there is a new addition in Gmail Labs that does exactly that.

This is definitely welcoming for users who pin the Gmail tab on Chrome, and also to those who have so many tab opened that they can barely read the tab’s title anymore.

To enable, simply go to Gmail Labs and look for Unread message icon.

It’s only supported in Chrome 6+ or Firefox 2+, but what else can you be using?

The next feature Gmail Labs should work on would be sound notification. A perfect companion to the unread messages favicon.

©2011 SheepTech

Gmail Labs Add Unread Count on Favicon

A window overlay sort of a thing will appear, and an excerpt of your mail content will be displayed, like this:

The window is not scrollable. If the full mail content is too long to be fitted, you will have to open the mail to read it in full. That’s the reason they call it sneak peak after all.

On the top left corner of the window, there are 3 buttons—Archive, Delete & Mark as read, for convenience’s sake.

It’s useful to preview recurring emails, say, notifications email when you got a new follower on Twitter, or a blog comment moderation email. You basically know what’s the content by reading the subject alone, previewing it makes it convenient to click a link in the email without opening it.

©2011 SheepTech

Gmail Sneak Peak: Preview Mail Content Without Opening It

When connection is available again, whatever you have done offline just now will be synchronized with Gmail’s servers again. Offline emails will be sent, stars and labels will be updated etc.

Just like other Google services, this new feature will be rolled out slowly. If you don’t see them in your Gmail Labs yet, you should see them in a couple of days, unless you are not using Gmail in English (either US & UK).

If you see Offline Gmail in the Gmail Labs already, you can enable it, and then set it up by clicking on the “Offline^0.1” link at the top right corner.

The Flacky Connection Mode is interesting. It synchronizes your mails with the server in the background, but Gmail will still be using the local cache. It is meant to be used when connection is crappy, but what if we still use it when our connection is decent? Super fast Gmail? I can’t tell until Offline Gmail is available for my account.

Official Gmail Blog – New in Labs: Offline Gmail

Updates:
Offline Gmail is available on my Gmail account after less than 24 hours this post is published. Gmail downloaded one year worth of my mail archive, along with their attachments.

I initially though Flacky Connection Mode can be used to speed things up even if we are on a decent connection. But it turns out that in Flacky Connection Mode, images in emails will not be displayed. If most of your emails are text-based and without any images, Flacky Connection Mode is useful to speed things up, else, only use it when the internet connection is slow or unstable.

©2011 SheepTech

Gmail + Google Gears = Offline Gmail

the day you believe you’ve reached your fullest potential is the day you have not. (2:31)

Thereby, the Gmail engineers are always looking for ways to improve Gmail, and one way is to test experimental features via the Gmail Labs.

There are 31 experimental features available in Gmail Labs at the time of writing this, ranging from features for boring people like Old Snakey (the old school snake game) to features that will save your from trouble, like Mail Goggles (prevent you from sending emails you might regret later).

There are 5 features that I personally think would be useful to most Gmail users, namely:

1. Custom keyboard shortcuts
Memorizing keyboard shortcuts that you customize on your own is relatively easier than those that have been preset.

Custom keyboard shortcuts allows you to re-map your Gmail keyboard shortcuts, in case you don’t like the default settings.

Lets you customize keyboard shortcut mappings. Adds a new Settings tab from which you can remap keys to various actions

2. Mouse gestures
So you’re not a keyboard person? With mouse gestures, you can make your cheap $5 mouse to work as well as your keyboard! Well, not really, but you will be able to navigate around your inbox more conveniently with your mouse, and most importantly, with style.

Use your mouse to navigate with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows.

3. Navbar drag and drop
The title tells you all. Basically it allows you to re-arrange the boxes/gadgets/(whatever you call it) on the sidebar, deciding which should be on top and which should be at the bottom. What’s better than having things arranged the way you like it?

Allows you to reorder the items in your navbar using drag and drop.

4. Mark as Read Button
This is my favorite. It does nothing more than adding a Mark as Read button, but it saves me hell lots of time. There are times when you already know the content of an email without the need of reading it, or you don’t even want to know what’s in it at all. Instead of having to select “Mark as Read” from the More Actions dropdown menu, it’s now just a button click away!

Tired of spending all that effort to click on the more actions menu every time you want to mark messages as read without reading them? Now just enable this lab and that is just a button click away!

5. Add any gadget by URL
This one opens up yet another great possibilities of enhancing Gmail the way you like. With wide range of iGoogle Gadgets, you can do way more in Gmail itself than ever before. Say, tweeting.

Adds a “Gadgets” tab to Settings, where you’ll be able to specify the URL of any gadget. This gadget will show in a box in the left column.

If you have no idea what you’ve just read, login to your Gmail, click on the “Settings” link at the top right corner, then click on the “Labs” tab and start from there. You’ll see a list of Gmail experimental features that you can toy with.

So which among the 31 experimental features is your favorite? Or do you even use any of them?

©2011 SheepTech

5 Gmail Labs Features to Enhance Your Gmail Experience