The launch of Gmail’s Meter email analytical tool on Friday got us thinking about our own email habits, not only from our Gmail account but the other three (not unlike most young professionals) as well. As we know by now, email does not come without its shortfalls. Information and intention is often misconstrued, especially on larger email strings and some may argue that it makes everything too accessible. For ever-busy YPs with high-volume inboxes, it is easy to miss an email. Expectations may vary among different individuals and professions in terms of response time and accessibility.
Enter the Gmail Meter, a Google Apps script designed to provide a little insight to your email usage. Not to overwhelm users with even more information to process on a daily basis, the Gmail Meter results arrive on the first day of every month, providing an email containing usage statistics for the entire month. It shows how many emails were sent and received, the percentage of email conversations you have started and the percentage of replies within these conversations. Daily traffic stats provide an estimate of times of the day and days of the week you are most active on email and whom you are engaging with the most frequently. Perhaps a needed eye-opener to some, it measures how quickly you respond and how long it takes others to reply to you.
Gmail Meter will also show the number of important and starred messages and the word count of your emails. Probably the most telling is the type of email you have in your inbox, revealing the percentage of unread, archived or trashed emails. Despite our best efforts, it is safe to say that many of us have a large number of emails sitting unread and cluttering our inboxes. At one point we may have had every intention of revisiting some of these but inevitably forget. Now Gmail Meter reminds us of these.
To install Gmail Meter, the official Google blog has posted a video and a set of instructions that are easy to follow. First, go to Google Docs and open a Spreadsheet. Click on Tools > Script Gallery. Search for “Gmail Meter” and click Install. You will then see a new menu item called Gmail Meter on your spreadsheet. Click on Gmail Meter > Get a Report. You can then choose the type of report.