During your first week, continue to refine your new work environment
- Add Google Workspace on your mobile devices
- Customize Gmail for how you work
- Customize your calendar
Add Google Workspace on your mobile device
With Google Workspace apps on your mobile devices, you have the freedom to work securely from anywhere with your phone, laptop, or tablet.
Before you start this checklist, make sure your phone is charged and your operating system (OS) is up to date.
Calendar: Online calendars designed for teams
Running late for a meeting? Use Calendar to reschedule or let people know you’re on your way.
Cloud Search: Search for company content across your Google products
Find contact information for colleagues.
Contacts: Online address book
Quickly send messages or calendar invitations to groups of people you contact the most, without entering their addresses individually.
Google Chat: Chat directly with a co-worker or communicate with your entire team at once
Google Meet: Hold video meetings with people inside or outside your organization
Quickly join a meeting by clicking the shareable URL.
Drive: Online file storage
Docs: Create & collaborate on documents in your browser
Forms: Create and analyze surveys and quizzes in your browser
Manage event registrations, create quizzes, analyze responses, and more.
Groups: Manage and participate in online discussions
Example:
Create mailing lists and share files with team members using one address.
Sheets: Create and collaborate on spreadsheets in your browser
Example:
Did an important deadline or resource change right before a meeting with investors? Update your shared project plan on the go.
Sites: Create and collaborate on impactful websites
Example:
Build public sites, internal project hubs, and more—all without IT help.
Slides: Create and collaborate on presentations in your browser
Make last-minute changes to your project presentation, even if you don’t have your computer with you.
Voice: Get a phone number for calling, text messaging, and voicemail — all on one app that syncs across your devices
Get Gmail notifications on your Android device
- Open the Gmail app.
- At the top, tap Menu
Settings
.
- Select your account and scroll to Notifications.
- Tap Inbox notifications and select your notification settings.
- (Optional) To change notification settings for certain labels in your inbox:
- Tap Manage labels
- Tap Sync messages
- Choose the notification settings for that label.
- Repeat steps for any other labels you want to get notifications for.
- Tap Manage labels
Note: Your Android device has other notification settings that are separate from the Gmail app.
Get Gmail notifications on your iOS device
- Open the Gmail app.
- At the top, tap Menu
- Tap your account.
- In the Notifications section, tap All new emails.
- When you see a notification on your device, swipe it to the left to Reply or Archive.
Get Google Chat notifications on your device
- In the Chat app, tap Menu
- Tap Mobile notifications and choose an option:
- All Messages
- New threads, threads I’m following and direct messages
- Threads I’m following and direct messages
- Only @mentions and direct messages
- Off
Get Drive notifications on your Android device
- Open the Google Drive app.
- In the top left, tap Menu
Settings.
- Tap Notification settings.
- Choose which settings you'd like to change.
Settings.Note: If you change these settings in the Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides apps, they will also change for Google Drive.
Get Drive notifications on your iOS device
- Open the Google Drive app.
- In the top left, tap Menu
.
- Tap Settings
- Tap Notifications.
- Turn Notifications Enabled on or off.
Get Calendar notifications on your Android and iOS devices
You can change your notifications settings for a single event, or all your events. To learn more about setting up notifications on your mobile devices, see Change or turn off Calendar notifications.
Customize Gmail for how you work
- Open Gmail.
- At the top right, click Settings
- Under Density, choose an option:
- Default
- Comfortable
- Compact
Note: If you choose Default, you'll get a preview of your attachments from your inbox.
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top right, click Settings
.
- In the “Quick settings” menu, go to the “Theme” section.
- Next to "Theme," click View all.
- In the theme window, select a theme.
- For the default theme, select Default.
- For Dark theme, select Dark.
- For a pre-uploaded theme, select any theme.
- Optional: If available, at the bottom of the theme window, you can change the theme.
- To change the text background, click Text background
.
- To make the corners darker, click Vignette
.
- To blur background theme, click Blur
.
- To change the text background, click Text background
- Click Save.
.
.
.Note: To use Vacation responder, your account must be at least 24 hours old.
- Open Gmail .
- At the top right, click Settings
- Scroll down to Vacation responder and select Vacation responder on or Vacation responder off.
- If you turned on the vacation responder, enter the dates you're away and add a message. Then, select who should get a response.
- At the bottom, click Save Changes.
Read, respond to, and search Gmail messages when you aren’t connected to the internet. Your messages will be sent when you're back online.
On your computer, make sure you've downloaded Chrome. You can only use Gmail offline in a Chrome browser window, not using Incognito mode.
- Go to Gmail offline settings.
- Check "Enable offline mail."
- Choose your settings, such as how many days of messages you want to sync.
- Click Save changes.
Enable Gmail offline on each device for which you want offline access.
Tired of typing the same reply every time someone sends you email with a common question? Compose your reply once and save the email as a template. Later, you can open the template and send it again with just a few clicks.
Enable templates
- Open Gmail.
- At the top right, click Settings
- At the top, click Advanced.
- In the Templates section, select Enable.
- At the bottom, click Save Changes.
Create or change a template
- Open Gmail and click Compose.
- In the Compose window, enter your template text.
- Click More
- Choose an option:
- To create a new template, click Save draft as template
- To change a previously saved template, click Save draft as template and under Overwrite Template, choose a template and click Save to overwrite it.
- To create a new template, click Save draft as template
- (Optional) To send an email, compose your message and click Send.
Insert a template
- Open Gmail and click Compose.
- Click More
- To insert a template, under Insert template, choose a saved template to insert in your email.
- Compose the rest of your message and click Send.
You can move the Chat panel to the right or left side of your Gmail inbox.
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top right, click Settings
See all settings.
- At the top, click Chat and Meet.
- Next to “Chat position,” select Left side of the inbox or Right side of the inbox.
- Click Save Changes.
See all settings.- Next to Type of response
, click the Down arrow
- Enter a new subject.
You can use this feature only if your organization supports it. For help, contact your administrator. Gemini for Google Workspace is available when your Google account language is set to an English dialect. Additionally, some features are available in Spanish and Portuguese. Learn more about language availability.
Write a new draft with Gemini in Gmail
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top left, click Compose.
- You can also reply to an email thread.
- At the bottom left of the window, click Help me write
.
- Enter a prompt. For example:
- “A thank you letter for my job interview”
- “A birthday invitation for my 5-year-old”
- “Ask my friend for restaurant recommendations in Toronto”
- Click Create.
- (Optional) After generating your draft, click:
- Recreate: Generate a new draft based on your prompt. After you create a new version of the draft, you can’t go back to the previous version.
- Refine: Revise the text in the draft.
- Formalize: Make the draft more formal.
- Elaborate: Add additional details to the draft.
- Shorten: Shorten the draft.
- If your draft looks good, click Insert.
.Tips:
- For better results, include:
- Recipient
- Topic
- Tone you want to express in your prompt
For example, "An apology to my child's teacher for their absence."
- To get a draft you like, it may take a few tries. To submit a different prompt:
- At the top right of the draft, tap Close
.
- Enter a new prompt.
- At the top right of the draft, tap Close
Refine a draft with Gemini in Gmail
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top left, click Compose.
- You can also reply to an email thread or open an existing draft.
- Write your message.
- At the bottom left of the window, click Help me write (Labs)
- Choose an option from the menu:
- Polish: Refine your draft.
- Formalize: Make the draft more formal.
- Elaborate: Add additional details to the draft.
- Shorten: Shorten the draft.
- (Optional) After refining your draft, click:
- Recreate: Generate a new draft. After you create a new version of the draft, you can’t go back to the previous version.
- Refine: Revise the text again.
- If your draft looks good, click Insert.
Give feedback about a draft
Gemini for Google Workspace is constantly learning and may not be able to support your request.
If the generated draft is inaccurate or looks unsafe, you can let us know by submitting feedback. Your feedback can help improve AI-assisted Workspace features and broader Google efforts in AI.
- Below the generated text, click Good suggestion
or Bad suggestion
.
- To share detailed feedback, click Tell us more.
- To share general feedback, click Feedback
.
- To share general feedback, click Feedback
- Click Submit.
Important:
- To send feedback with screenshots, click Help
in the top right of Gmail
Send feedback to Google. Learn more about sending feedback in Gmail.
- To report a legal issue, create a request.
in the top right of Gmail 
Send feedback to Google. Customize your calendar
You can choose how many days you see at a time in your calendar view. Select the option that’s best for you at the top of your calendar.
- On your computer, open Google Calendar.
- In the top right, choose a view: Day, Week, Month, Year, Schedule, or 4 days.
When you use Google Calendar on your computer, you can add other calendars, like sports calendars.
- Open Google Calendar.
- On the left, next to "Other calendars," click Add other calendars
- Find a sports calendar. To add it to your calendar, check the box next to it.
- Right-click an event.
- Select a new color.
Note: If you change the color of an event, the original color is represented as a vertical line on the left side of the event.
Add world clocks to Calendar
Show the current time in time zones of your choice at the left of your calendar:
- On your computer, open Google Calendar.
- In the top right, click Settings
Settings.
- In "World clock" click Show world clock.
- Click Add time zone
Settings.Add a time zone to your calendar
Display time zones as columns in your calendar, to help schedule events across time zones.
- On your computer, open Google Calendar.
- In the top right, click Settings
- In the "Time Zone" section, click Display secondary time zone.
- Click Secondary time zone
Change the time zone for all your calendars
- On your computer, open Google Calendar.
- In the top right, click Settings
- In "Time Zone," click Primary time zone
Set preferences for all your calendars
- In Calendar, click Settings
- On the left under General, click Notification settings.
- Click Notifications and select an option:
- Off
- Desktop notifications
- Alerts
- (Optional) To set up a sound for your incoming notifications, check the Play notification sounds box.
- (Optional) To manage your notifications, on the left, click your calendar
- Next to each option, click the Down arrow
and select None or Email.
Customize preferences for one calendar
You can change notification preferences for specific calendars you own.
- Open Google Calendar.
- In the top right, click Settings
- On the left, under "Settings for my calendars," click the calendar you want to change
- Under "Event notifications" and "All-day event notifications”:
- To edit your notifications: Choose if you want to receive a notification or an email. You can change how often you want to get alerts in advance.
- To add another type of notification: Click Add notification.
- To remove a notification: Click Remove notification
.
Next steps
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