Google has added a new feature in Gmail Labs that allows users to retrieve email messages.

A new Undo Send button will hold an email for five seconds after the user clicks send. Google says the purpose of this feature is to allow users to recall emails that were sent to the wrong person, have the wrong subject heading or are missing a file attachment.

Gmail has been all about improving usability lately. Most recently they’ve announced a big improvement in this area fixing a problem that has annoyed countless emailers including Googlers themselves.

You know how when you get more than one conversation going based on one message, you don’t always have time to read each new one? It can get pretty confusing when trying to remember which ones still need to be read when you go back to them. If you mark the whole thing as unread, then you have to wade through the ones you’ve already read.

It appears that they never sleep at Gmail. After the most recent improvement in conversation-saving with the service, they have now added the ability to preview YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, and Yelp content with a new Gmail Labs experiment.

Back in December, Google introduced a new feature in Gmail Labs called "Tasks" that provides Gmail users with a window to keep track of their…tasks (go figure). Today, they have announced a couple new features for Tasks.

Users can now easily move a task (along with its sub-tasks) to another list by clicking on the arrow (or using Shift-Enter) to the right of the task, then selecting another list in the drop down at the bottom of the screen.

Social sites may be surpassing email in usage, but some fairly surprising data from Hitwise shows that visits to Gmail have surpassed visits to YouTube. The news comes at a time when Gmail can use some good news as complaints about downtime have recently mounted.

Yahoo Mail and Hotmail must be looking pretty tempting to certain Gmail users right now.  Yet another Gmail outage has occurred, and once again, there’s been little official word regarding causes, effects, and timetables.

Google has created a new feature in Gmail Labs that allows Gmail users to import and export filters. It lets you download a file containing some or all of your filters or upload one to create a set of filters.

Software Engineer Luke Blanshard shares the following uses for the feature at the Gmail Blog:

Gmail chat has come to iGoogle. This means users will be able to chat with their friends and associates without leaving the comfort of their Google homepage.

The feature is not a gadget like most of your iGoogle features. The chat feature comes in the form of a sidebar and resides below the left-hand navigation menu.

It used to be one was at most risk of getting a computer virus via spam or frequenting bad Internet neighborhoods (places one probably shouldn’t be hanging out in the first place, picking up just any old download they come across). These days malware pushers have come out in the open where the masses collect, and places like Google, Facebook, and Twitter are starting to resemble the Time Square of old—with peril and vice all around.

As you’ve probably read by now (if not experienced firsthand), there was an outage for Gmail the other night. This ended up impacting a lot of businesses, and was not exactly the greatest demonstration of Google’s 99.9% uptime guarantee. I guess there’s always that other 0.1%.

Google has announced a couple new features for Gmail. They’re almost cranking out too many to keep up with aren’t they?

The old X Files adage aptly applies to the Internet these days: Trust no one. Some Gmail users, already miffed about previous service outages, were invited through Google Talk to watch a video by clicking a link. Of course, bad news awaited.

A little less than one month ago, Google introduced an experimental version of Gmail that could work without an Internet connection, and we ran the headline "Gmail Goes Offline (In A Good Way)" as a result.  This morning, minus the part in parentheses, the same title could apply.

Gmail has been cranking out new features left and right lately. That continues today with the addition of letting you choose your own colors.

To do so, simply click on the Settings link in the upper right hand corner of your screen, select the Themes tab, and find the "Choose your own colors" option at the bottom. From there, you can select colors for just about every element of your inbox.

You can now install desktop icons for Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Gmail on your computer for quick access. These icons are now an option of Google Pack.

If you are unfamiliar with Google Pack,it’s a free collection of software from Google and other companies. The software in the Google Pack helps you browse the web faster, remove spyware and viruses, organize your photos, and more. Learn more about each of the programs in the Google Pack.

Google has announced four changes to Gmail’s contact manager. Each change is a feature to enhance the service’s usability.

Perhaps you’re a hard-charging businessperson who wants clients to know their questions will be answered even if you’re on the beach.  Or maybe you’re just someone who feels a need to quietly brag about vacationing overseas.  Either way, Google’s got you covered with a new "add your location to your signature" Gmail feature.

Gmail is growing rapidly. Yahoo has long dominated the race against Microsoft’s Hotmail and Google’s Gmail, but Gmail is on pace to overthrow the other two. I got in touch with Yahoo Mail’s VP John Kremer to try and find out some expectations Yahoo has for Yahoo Mail.

Google introduced a beta version of Google Sync today. This allows Google users to sync their Gmail contacts and Google Calendar events to their iPhones or Windows Mobile devices (with Google’s own Android, all the data is automatically synced).

Google has released a new experiment feature in Gmail Labs that lets users activate multiple views within their inboxes. Fittingly, this feature is called "Multiple Inboxes." In case you’re having a hard time visualizing it, software Engineer Octavian Costache on the Gmail Blog shares the following image:

Google has taken a few steps to make labeling email messages in Gmail a little less complicated, particularly for those who are new to the service and not used to the Gmail labeling system.

Gmail users will notice that the buttons at the top of their inboxes are a little different looking now: