New Labs Feature for Gmail: Got the Wrong Bob?

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 15 Oct 2009

The software developers over at Google came up with a new Gmail Labs offering that is meant to enhance the Gmail user experience by saving you the embarrassment of sending an email message to the wrong person. For example, you have something terribly important that you want to share with all your friends, including Bob from accounting. So you compose the email and hit send – only to later realize that instead of Bob from accounting you sent it to Bob for R&D, and nobody stands Bob from R&D.

"Got the wrong Bob?" is a new Labs feature aimed at sparing you this kind of embarrassment. Turn it on from the Labs tab under Gmail Settings, and based on the groups of people you email most often, Gmail will try to identify when you've accidentally included the wrong person — before it's too late. If you normally email Bob Smith together with Tim and Angela, but this time you added Bob Jones instead, we'll warn you that it might be a mistake. Note that this only works if you're emailing more than two people at once,” explained Ari Leichtberg, Software Engineer and Yossi Matias, Head of Israel Engineering Center.

If “Got the wrong Bob?” sounds like a Gmail Labs offering that will help you, here is a detailed step-by-step guide on how to activate it in your Gmail account:
  • 1 - Go to Gmail (click here – a new tab will open), enter your login credentials and click "Sign in". If you are already signed into Google, click this link and you can just skip step 2 in this tutorial.
  • 2 - In the top right corner of the screen, right next to your user name you should be able to see “Settings”; click it. Now locate “Labs” and click it as well.
  • 3 - Scroll down until you find a Labs feature called Got the wrong Bob. Select Enable, then click Save Changes (there’s a Save Changes tab at the top of the experiments list and at the bottom as well) and you’re done.



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