Article by George Norman

On 03 Sep 2010

About a week ago, Google announced that it integrated Google Voice into Gmail chat thus allowing Gmail users to call landline and mobile phones free of charge (in the US and Canada). According to the Mountain View-based search engine giant, a lot of people took advantage of this feature. As Google explained, more than 10million calls were made from Gmail to landline and mobile phones.

With so many people giving this feature a try, the Google Voice team decided to offer some advice on how to get more out of calling in Gmail. “The uptake has been amazing and 10,000,000 calls later, we wanted to offer some tips and tricks on how you, as a loyal Google Voice user, can unlock additional features when you setup Gmail to receive calls with your Google Voice number,” commented Google Voice Product Marketing Manager, Michael Bolognino.


Here are the tips and tricks the Google Voice team shared:

Call screening
In case you did not notice it, there is a “Screen” button right between “Answer” and Ignore. When you click that button, the person who’s calling you will go straight to voicemail. Here comes the kicker: while that person is leaving you a message, you can listen in while they talk. If something in the message catches your attention, click “Join” and you will take the call.

Call switching
You do not need to hang up if someone called you in Gmail and you need to go out. Instead of asking the person on the end of the line to hang up and call you again later, you can switch the call from Gmail to your mobile phone. To do so simply click the asterisk (*) on the Gmail dial pad -> your Google Voice forwarding phones will ring -> answer the phone to continue the conversation.

Call recording
To start recording a phone call, simply press 4 on the dial pad. A notification that the call is being recorded will be presented to you and to the person on the other end of the line. Press 4 again or hang up to stop the recording. All recordings will be saved in the Google Voice Inbox.

Google Voice extension for Chrome
Did you know there is a Google Voice extension for the Chrome web browser? Well, you do now! Thanks to this extension you can click on any phone number on any website or in any email and the number will automatically be dialed for you.

And here is a tip from myself. To easily access the new calling feature, you can use a handy keyboard shortcut: press G then press P and the new phone dialer will show up. Please note that keyboard shortcuts in Gmail need to be turned on to work. To turn on keyboard shortcuts just go to Settings, then from the General tab click Keyboard Shortcuts on. Check out the image below.




Tags: Google, Gmail, Google Voice

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