The merging of Google+ and Gmail

I see that Google have changed the way that Google+ and Gmail work together and I’m expecting that one or two people will probably complain. I have been having a look at how it really does work and am not sure that people should actually have any complaints. What Google have given the users of Google+ is the ability to email people in your Google+ circles, even if you don’t have their email address. I’m sure that the worry that people could have, is that they will be getting spam emails from all and sundry and that there is going to be some sort of privacy issue. I don’t think that there is any need to worry because there are controls in place to protect us all.

So how does this work in Gmail

You have to be in the Gmail web browser and you just click on Compose as per usual. When you start to type the name of the person, if there is a match in your Google+ circles you will see their name and photo. At the moment this only works in the desktop version of Gmail and not in the mobile versions on your iPhone or Android devices. I am kind of wondering why you will want to do this because you can already send messages to your Google+ circle contacts through Google+. You can also send a message to a Google+ contact using Hangouts. So in some ways this is more of an integration into a service that you already have of things that you can already do. On the other hand, there are some people that see the email system as different and perhaps wouldn’t want to have the crossover between the social layer that is Google+ within email.

Receiving emails from your Google+ connections

So let’s imagine that you would want to receive emails from your connections on Google+, how is that going to work? First of all, the emails that come in from people that you have added to your circles already, they will go to the Primary Category. If you get sent an email from somebody that is outside your circles, then these will go to the Social Category. You do have to be using the inbox categories within Gmail for this to take place like this.

So if an email has come in from somebody that is not within your circles then you have some choices to make regards whether you want to get further emails from that person.

1. You can allow future messages just by replying to the message or by clicking Add to circles.
2. You can also block future messages from any specific person on Google+ from sending you emails this way just by clicking on the Report Spam or Abuse which you will see as a link within the message.
3. You can also choose to ignore the email and unless you do something else with it that person can’t send you any more messages. If they add replies to their original message then once again you have the option to report the spam.

Take control of who can email you from Google+

There are some new settings within Gmail which you can get to by clicking on the gear icon at the top right of the window and selecting Settings. Then all you have to do is to scroll down to the Email Via Google section on the General tab. There you will find a drop-down menu that gives you four choices. If you really don’t want to have anybody sending you messages from Google+ to your email you can choose No One. Then with the other three options you can decide if it is going to be just people within your Circles, Extended Circles Or Anyone on Google+. So if you see it as being a problem, you can nip this in the bud within your own email settings in Gmail.

Move along, these are not the problems you’re looking for.

From what I can see of these safeguards which are within the overall way that this works within Google+ and Gmail, I don’t think that is something you should worry about. Certainly, it is something that you should know about and you should know how to go into the settings in order to make it work the way that you want it to work. So we are not all going to be inundated with with offers of pills to enlarge certain parts of our bodies or whatever else goes around in the spam of email these days.