Mail Goggles

From the are-you-sure-it's-not-April-1st-? Department:

Gmail engineers today announced a new experimental Gmail feature that they're calling "Mail Goggles":

"Hopefully Mail Goggles will prevent many of you out there from sending messages you wish you hadn't. Like that late night memo -- I mean mission statement -- to the entire firm."

It works by stopping you from sending messages and forcing you to go through a few steps to make sure you really really mean it. The steps? Math problems! I guess the logic is that if you're too, ahem, impaired to figure out what 2 times 5 equals, you probably ought not be sending emails, either. Interesting thought. :)

To enable this, log into your Gmail account. Click on 'Settings' at the top, then the 'Labs' tab. Scroll about 3/4 of the way down the Labs features until you see Mail Goggles. Click the 'Enable' button next to it, and then the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page. Now, if only I could get such an embarrassment-saving feature on my cell phone...


While you've got that Labs page open, I highly recommend enabling the "Forgotten Attachment Detector" as well. This one will also stop you from sending a message, but only if you've mentioned attaching a file but not actually done so. It pops up a little reminder to let you know that there's nothing attached, and gives you the chance to take care of it. This is where the "Save Changes" button comes in handy... I thought I had enabled the Forgotten Attachment Detector when I first heard about it, two weeks ago, but apparently I forgot to click "Save Changes"... and so I sent my cover letter with no resume attached! D'oh!