How Gmail keeps your email organized across devices
Q: I check my Gmail from three devices. An iPad using the Gmail app, another iPad using mail.google.com via the Safari browser and on a laptop using mail.google.com via Chrome. Should I expect Gmail to sync across all three of these devices?
A:
If you make changes to your email from one device using any of these methods, the updates will be visible when you check your messages from any of the other devices.
This is normal as all of these methods are working with your email in real time and making all of the updates on the mail server that hosts your email.
That means if you delete a message on one device, the message will be gone on the other devices. You will also see that messages you have read or replied to will show as read or replied to on the other devices.
This is very convenient for keeping track of your communications. Some people use a mail client like Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird to connect to their email using the Post Office Protocol, or POP, which basically downloads the messages to the computer and any changes are only visible on the computer where the changes were made.
If you must use one of these clients for email, check to make sure you are using the Gmail specific configuration instead of POP. Outlook, Apple Mail and other mail clients provide several ways to add an email account and have a specific configuration for Gmail.
And if you are using a mail application to connect to another email service, consider using the Internet Messaging Access
Protocol, or IMAP, to check your email.
This will update your email on the server so changes made on one computer will be replicated on any other devices you
have configured.
And if you’re simply using a Web browser to access Gmail, Hotmail, AT&T or any of the other Web-based email services, you don’t have to worry about a thing in regards to keeping your email synchronized.
Q: When using Zoom, I sometimes don’t hear any sound over my computer speakers. I can, however, hear the meeting if I use headphones plugged into the headphone jack. Is there a way to make sure I hear the audio on my speakers?
A:
Most computers will tend to favor outputting the audio to the headphones if you have your headphones plugged in. If you want to hear the audio over your speakers, you will need to make sure you unplug the headphones so the system does not default to them.
For Zoom specifically, there are options for selecting both input and output devices. If you click on the little microphone in the lower left corner of Zoom you can switch between any audio devices your computer is aware of.