Mountain View, California — Google’s free mail service rolled out a couple of nifty, but useful Gmail updates on Thursday. Internet search giant on its Official Gmail Blog announced the introduction of a drag and drop feature to its popular webmail service.
Google added drag-and-drop attachments and better calendar integration to the popular Webmail service. As the name suggest, the feature empowers Chrome and Firefox users to just drag-and-drop files directly from their desktop and attach them to their emails without using the awkward attachment tool. Previously, users had to manually select the “Attach a file” button, then browse the files, and upload them one by one. Dragging and dropping attachments can definitely help save some time.
To drag a file to a message, start the Compose window. Then drag a file to the section of the compose window where the “attach a file” link is located. You will see that area of the window expand and prompt you as above. Drop the file there, and you will see the familiar UI as the file is uploaded.
Also today, Google added another new feature called insert-invitation link next to the Attachment button that lets Gmail users create a Google Calendar appointment from within a new message. When clicked, it pops up with a Google Calendar invitation-maker that contains a visual of when there are open times to meet based on those people’s schedules. As soon as you send it, the event gets added to everyone’s calendars if they are on Gmail, or it gets attached as an .ICS file.
Although the newly announced feature are not earth-shattering, but it makes life — and Gmail — just a little bit better. It works with Chrome and Firefox 3.6 on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.