Everyday, I run across numerous bits of information on the internet that I want to save. It could be images, articles, web sites, bits of text, etc. I have used several programs and web sites in the past, though I think I have found the perfect utility. In the past, nothing worked well while I was away from the office. May I introduce Gmail. I have been using Gmail since the beta period, and have up until now used it just for emailing. I recently discovered a great use for all that storage Google gives you in Gmail, a place to store my files.

Here is what you will need:

1. A Gmail account
2. The Google Toolbar

The latest version of the Google Toolbar has a “send to” function. This allows you to send text, images or entire pages to Gmail.

As I am browsing, if I run across something I want to save, I email it to a secret account I have set up in Gmail. The email address of this contact is basically a macshout+[secretphrase]@gmail.com email address. The secret phrase is a great way to have multiple email addresses delivered to your one Gmail address. You can see more about them at LifeHacker.

Set up a filter in your Gmail account with the +[secretphrase] in the “from” line and tag it with a @file (or @database or @storage, whatever works for you) label, and have Gmail archive it. Later on, when you want to check it out, just do a search for label:@file, and a keyword if wanted, and there you go, automatic storage.

You can see a Threadless Tee that I have my eye one:

Two things you will notice, it shows where the image came from in the subject line, and it also has a link to the page where the image came from, so I can return later on.

Gmail has some amazing functions, file storage is just one of them.

gmail, google gmail, online storage, mac, email

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