Gmail Labs goes global on Gmail's fifth birthday

Gmail launched on 1 April 2004. "We're excited to launch Gmail Labs internationally around Gmail's fifth birthday," said Eric Tholomé, director of product management at Google. "The rapid innovation in Gmail Labs makes it a perfect example of how Gmail has grown over the last five years: creating a more intuitive, powerful and innovative email programme for users."

Labs offers users useful and quirky tools to enhance and personalise their email inboxes. Initially launched in English in 2008, Gmail Labs will now be available around the globe in local languages. Users can enable and disable Labs features individually with just a few clicks of the mouse. Some of the features at launch include:

• Offline Gmail - access your email and compose messages even when you don't have an Internet connection. Changes are synchronised when you reconnect to the Internet.
  
• Undo Send - retract an email for up to five seconds after it has been sent.
  
• Mail Goggles - within a chosen time window, this tool allows you to send mail only if you can solve a set of simple maths problems. Otherwise, get a good night's sleep and try again in the morning.
  
• Forgotten Attachment Reminder - prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments by prompting you if you have mentioned an attachment without adding one.
  
• Tasks - adds a to-do list to your inbox. You an create tasks manually, or directly from an email, and edit your list from your phone while on-the-go.

To enable Gmail Labs, go to the Labs tab from within the Settings page (linked to from the top right of the inbox). To set up a Gmail account, go to http://mail.google.com

More information about Gmail and Gmail Labs can be found at http://mail.google.com, and on the Gmail Blog at http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/.