Day 1: Set up Chrome browser, Gmail & Calendar

               

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Here's a checklists of tasks we recommend for your first day with Google Workspace

• Set up Chrome browser
• Set up your Gmail inbox
• Get up to speed using Gmail
• Set up your Google Calendar
• Schedule your first meeting

These instructions are for desktop only.

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Set up Chrome browser

Install and learn about Chrome browser

To access your Google Workspace services like email and calendar, you'll use a web browser instead of a desktop app.

Why this is important 

A web browser automatically and securely saves your work to the web. When you’re signed in, you’ll be able to see the updates you make on any device and any browser.

And if you use Chrome browser, you’ll get access to more advanced Gmail and Calendar features, too. 

Before using this checklist

Download and install Chrome Browser

Sign in to your Google Workspace account

1. Open a browser and go to the Google Workspace User Hub.
2. Enter your Google Workspace email address (such as [e-mail]) and password.

Import your bookmarks from your old browser

Migrate your bookmarks, browsing history, and saved passwords from any other browsers to Chrome browser.

Import bookmarks

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, select More Bookmarks and lists Import bookmarks and settings.
3. Select Choose file.
4. Choose a file and select Open Done.

Set your startup page

You can set which page or pages appear when you start Chrome browser (your startup page). You have 3 options.

Option 1: Start Chrome browser on a new tab

You can set Chrome to open a New Tab page whenever you start Chrome.

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, select More Settings.
3. On the left, select On startup Open the New Tab page.

Option 2: Continue where you left off

Or you can tell Chrome to reopen the same pages you were looking at when you last quit Chrome.

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, select More Settings.
3. On the left, select On startup Continue where you left off.

Your cookies and data are saved, so any websites that you signed in to before, such as Gmail, will open again. If you don't want to be automatically signed in to these pages, follow the steps below:

1. On your computer, open Chrome Browser.
2. At the top right, click More Settings.
3. At the bottom, click Advanced.
4. Under Privacy and security, click Site settings.
5. Click Cookies.
6. Turn on Keep local data only until you quit your browser.

Option 3: Open one or more specific pages

Or you can have Chrome open a set of pages you specify:

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, select More Settings.
3. Under "On startup," select Open a specific page or set of pages.
4. You can either:
   • Select Add a new page.
     1. Enter the web address.
     2. Select Add.
   • Select Use current pages.

Tip: To update your pages, on the right, select More Edit or Delete.

Learn more at the Google Chrome Help Center

 

Create profiles for personal and work accounts

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, select Profile   Add new profile.
3. If you choose to sync to your Google Account, your profile name will automatically be your Account name.
4. Choose a name, photo, and color scheme.

If you choose to turn sync on in Chrome with a Google Account for the new profile, your bookmarks, history, passwords and other settings will sync automatically.

Tip: If you’re unsure which account you’re currently using, click your name and see which profile is at the top.

• Learn more at the Google Chrome Help Center
• Learn more at the Google Account Help Center

Create Gmail and Calendar bookmarks

1. In Chrome Browser, go to the site you want to visit again in the future. For example:
   • mail.google.com for Gmail
   • calendar.google.com for Google Calendar
2. To the right of the address bar, click Star Add Bookmark .
3. Choose an option:
   • To exit, click Close .
   • To rename your bookmark or access it from a different folder, choose an option and click Done.

Learn more at the Google Chrome Help Center

Create Gmail and Calendar desktop shortcuts (Windows)

1. Go to your desktop and right-click. 
2. Choose NewShortcut. 
3. Type the web address as the location. For example:
   • https://mail.google.com for Gmail
   • https://calendar.google.com for Calendar
4. (Optional) Name your shortcut.

 

Want more Chrome browser basics?  Get started with Chrome browser

Set up your Gmail inbox

Create your email signature

1. Open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Settings See all settings.
3. In the General tab, scroll to Signature and click Create new.
4. Name your signature, then click Create.
   This name is not your actual signature, but is a name for the signature template.
5. In the text box at the right, add your signature text.
6. (Optional) To add text colors, links, and images, use the format bar.
7. At the bottom, click Save Changes.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Choose an amount of time to recall a message you sent

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. In the top right, click Settings See all settings.
3. Next to "Undo Send," select a Send cancellation period of 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds.
4. At the bottom, click Save changes.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Add Google Chat to your inbox

You can add Chat to your Gmail inbox and get all the features of Chat directly in Gmail, so you can collaborate and stay connected from a central location.

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Settings   See all settings.

   Go to Gmail settings

3. At the top, click Chat and Meet.
4. Next to “Chat,” to turn Chat on or off in Gmail, select Google Chat or Off.
5. Click Save Changes.

You can also mute Chat notifications so you can work uninterrupted.

 

Get email notifications

You can get notifications for new emails you receive, or for messages marked important.

1. At the top right, click Settings See all settings.
2. Scroll down to the Desktop notifications section.
3. Click Click here to enable desktop notifications for <your organization>.
4. Select New mail notifications on or Important mail notifications on.
5. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Create labels (similar to folders) to organize email

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. On the left, scroll down, then click More.
3. Click Create new label.
4. Name your label.
5. Click Create.

Learn more: Switch to labels from folders

Add filter rules to categorize incoming email

1. Open Gmail.
2. In the search box at the top, click Show search options  .
3. Enter your search criteria. If you want to check that your search worked correctly, see what emails show up by clicking Search. 
4. At the bottom of the search window, click Create filter.
5. Choose what you’d like the filter to do.
6. Click Create filter.

Note: When you create a filter to forward messages, only new messages will be affected. ​Additionally, when someone replies to a message you've filtered, the reply will only be filtered if it meets the same search criteria. 

Tip: Try these Gmail filters for work or school.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

 

Switching from Microsoft Outlook? Learn how Gmail is different

Get up to speed using Gmail

Compose messages in a new window and resize the window

Tip: To open the Compose window with a keyboard shortcut, just type c.

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. At the top left, click Compose.
3. (Optional) Choose a window size with the buttons in the top right:
   • Full screen
   • Exit full screen
   • Open in a new window Shift + 
4. Add a subject and recipients (To, Cc, or Bcc).

Learn more: Start sending mail

Archive emails instead of deleting 

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. Open the message you want to archive.
3. At the top, click Archive .

Tips:

• To archive multiple messages, click the box next to each message Archive .
• To archive a message with keyboard shortcuts, press E. Learn more about keyboard shortcuts.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Download and save attachments

When you receive a file in Gmail, you can download it to your computer or save a copy of it to Google Drive. 

Download an attachment to your computer

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. Open a message.
3. At the bottom of the message, hover over the attachment.
4. Click Download .

Tips:

• If you use Google Chrome, learn how to download a file on Chrome.
• Your browser saves attachments to a download folder. Check your browser’s settings to find your downloads.
• If your computer supports it, you can also drag photos and attachments to your desktop.

Save a copy of Gmail attachments to Drive 

Important: You can’t add certain attachments to Google Drive. Learn about files you can store in Drive.

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. Open a message.
3. At the bottom of the message, hover over the attachment.
4. Click Add to Drive .

Learn more: Tips working with attachments

Find email with Advanced search

At the top of your inbox, search for one or more keywords that appear anywhere in the email—in the subject, body, or sender name. 

If you’re looking for something specific, click Show search options to use advanced search.

Example: Search for:

• Senders—Example: From:([e-mail])
• Date ranges—Example: after:2019/3/29 before:2019/4/5
• Keywords—Example: Company confidential
• Message attributes, such as attachments—Example: has:attachment

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Add stars and importance markers to flag important emails

Star an email 

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. From your inbox, go to the left of the message, then click Star . If the message is open, click More Add Star.
3. If you have multiple stars, keep clicking the star icon until you see the one you want to use.

See your starred messages

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. On the left side of the page, click Starred. You may need to click More first.

Tip: To find starred messages, you can also use search operators in Gmail.

• To find all starred messages, enter is:starred.
• To find messages with a specific star, enter has: followed by the star's name. The names are based on your current star options in use:
  • has:yellow-star
  • has:orange-star
  • has:red-star
  • has:purple-star
  • has:blue-star
  • has:green-star
  • has:red-bang
  • has:orange-guillemet
  • has:yellow-bang
  • has:green-check
  • has:blue-info
  • has:purple-question

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Use importance markers

You can also click a message's importance marker to mark the message as important yourself.

Next to emails that Gmail thinks is important, you'll see a yellow Importance marker . If an email hasn't been marked as important, the marker will be empty.

To see all your emails that are marked as important, search Gmail for is:important.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Print email messages

Print a single email

If there are multiple emails within the same conversation, you can print just one of those emails.

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. Open the email you want to print.
3. At the top right of the email, click More .
4. Click Print.

Learn more at the Gmail Help Center

Use Gmail with Gemini

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.

Get started with Gemini in Gmail

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Ask Gemini .
3. In the side panel, select a suggested prompt or write your own prompt.

   Select a suggestion

   1. Select from the list of suggestions.
      • To get more options, select More suggestions.
   2. At the bottom, in the prompt box, replace the example text with the info that you want.
   3. Press Enter.

   Enter a prompt in Gemini

   1. At the bottom, in the prompt box, enter a prompt.
   2. Press Enter.
4. Optional: To remove your history, click More options Clear history.

Tip: To avoid losing your history, copy a suggestion into your email. You lose your conversation history when:

• You refresh your browser.
• You close and reopen Gmail.

Explore Gemini in Gmail

Action	Description
Ask Gemini	Open Gemini.
More options	Clear your recent Gemini history and ask for more suggestions.
Expand	Make Gemini larger.
Collapse	Return Gemini to its original size.
Close	Close Gemini.
Clear history	Remove all generated text and images you did not insert into the document yet.
More suggestions	Find more suggestions from Gemini.
Copy	Copy a suggestion.
Retry with Google Search	Search on Google for more information about your question or request.
View more	View more of the response from Gemini.
View less	Minimize the response from Gemini.
Good suggestion	Give positive feedback about a response from Gemini.
Bad suggestion	Report an issue with a response from Gemini.

Things to ask Gemini in Gmail

Summarize an email thread

Gemini can summarize an email thread with more than 2 replies.

• If the side panel is open, Gemini summarizes the email thread when you click What’s this email about?
• If the side panel is closed, at the top of an email thread, click Summarize this email.

In the side panel, you can also prompt to ask for a summary.

• Examples:
  • “Summarize this email.”
  • “Create a list of action items for me based on this email.”
  • “Explain this email to me like I’m 5 years old.”

Suggest reply options

Gemini can draft a new email or a reply.

• To get suggested replies:
  1. On your computer, open an email thread.
  2. Click Ask Gemini .
  3. At the bottom of the side panel, click Suggest a reply.
• To draft a new email, ask Gemini to create the draft.
  • Examples:
    • “Write an announcement email for the launch of Project Clover.”
    • “Create a thank you note to a colleague for their work on Project Clover.”

Find information from previous emails

Gemini can get information on reservations, flights, packages, and other emails sent to your inbox. For example:

• “When is my package arriving?”
• “What time is my next flight?”

Search for certain types of emails

Gemini can search for your emails that are unread, from a specific date range and from specific people. Gemini will load the results in a Gmail search. For example:

• “Show my unread emails.”
• “Emails from [person] sent last week.”
• “Show unread emails from this week.”

Find information from your Google Drive files

Gemini can reference files and documents from Google Drive. For example:

• “What are the main points of the weekly team meeting notes from my documents?”
• “Summarize my document for Project Clover.”

Tip: To check files that Gemini used in its response, click Sources.

Get help with Gmail

• “Where can I edit my email filters?”
• “How can I create a label?”

Ask questions from the web

Important: To get answers from the web, make sure to include phrases like “Use Google Search” or “Using web search” in your prompt.

• “Write a paragraph describing the weather today in Mountain View, California using web search.”
• “Help me write a paragraph explaining if lightning can strike the same place twice using only information from the web.”

Get information about your events

Important: Gemini in Gmail can only give you information about events on your primary calendar.

• “What’s my first meeting tomorrow?”
• “When’s the next time I’ll meet with Lori?”

Create events

Important: Gemini in Gmail can only create events on your primary calendar.

• “Schedule a lunch block for tomorrow at noon.”
• “Create a weekly run on Fridays at 8 AM.”

Create images with Gemini

You can ask Gemini to generate images in Gmail.

1. On your computer, open Gmail.
2. At the top right, click Ask Gemini .
3. On the side panel, create your own prompt.
   • Example: “Create an image of a dog with glasses.”
4. You can also:
   • Change your prompt: Click Edit prompt .
   • Send feedback about the generated images: At the bottom, click Good suggestion or Bad suggestion .

Give feedback on generated output

Gemini for Google Workspace is constantly learning and may not be able to support your request. Because feedback may be human readable, please do not submit data that contains personal, confidential, or sensitive information.

If you get a suggestion that’s inaccurate or that you feel is unsafe, you can submit feedback. Your feedback can help improve AI-assisted Workspace features and broader Google efforts in AI.

1. Below the generated output, select Good suggestion or Bad suggestion .
2. If you select Bad suggestion , you can select the issue you found and enter additional feedback.
   • To review data that will be attached with your feedback, at the bottom, select What data will be attached?
   • If you don’t want to include the data with your feedback, uncheck Attach collected data to your feedback to help us improve the product experience.
3. Select Next.
4. Review additional context that you can share with your feedback.
   • If you don’t want to include the additional context with your feedback, uncheck Additional context (content referenced to create outputs).
5. Select Submit.

To provide general feedback about Gemini, at the top, click Help Send feedback to Google.

To report a legal issue, create a request.

Want more email basics?  Get started with Gmail for Google Workspace

Set up your Google Calendar

Set your Calendar event notifications

Set preferences for all your calendars

1. In Calendar, click Settings Settings.
2. On the left under General, click Notification settings.
3. Click Notifications and select an option:
   • Off
   • Desktop notifications
   • Alerts
4. (Optional) To set up a sound for your incoming notifications, check the Play notification sounds box.
5. (Optional) To manage your notifications, on the left, click your calendarOther notifications.
6. Next to each option, click the Down arrow and select None or Email.

Learn more at the Google Calendar Help Center

Set your work hours

If you’d prefer not to be invited to events outside of your working hours, you can adjust your Google Calendar settings so organizers know to reschedule an event to a better time.

1.  On your computer, open Google Calendar.
2. At the top right, click Settings  Settings.
3. On the left, under "General," click Working hours.
   • Tip: If your admin has turned on working location, click Working hours & location. Learn more about your administrator.
4. In the "Working hours" section, click Enable working hours.
5. Select the days you work  the times you work.
6. You can split the hours you work based on when you're available.
   • To add more than one time period to your workday, next to a day of the week, click Add .
   • To remove a time period, click Remove .

Tip: When you add work hours, the start time must be before the end time.

Calendar may suggest working hours based on your time zone, the work patterns in your country, and your schedule. You can accept, decline, or edit these suggestions. Learn more about Calendar in different time zones.

Learn more at the Google Calendar Help Center

View co-workers' calendars

1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
2. On the left, next to “Other calendars,” click Add other calendars Subscribe to calendar.
3. In the “Add calendar” box:
   • Enter the person's email address.
   • Select a calendar from the list
4. After you request access:
   • If the calendar isn't shared with you: The owner of the calendar gets an email that requests to give you access.
   • If the calendar is already shared with you: In your primary calendar, on the left, it shows under "Other calendars."

Learn more at the Google Calendar Help Center

Schedule your first meeting

Create a calendar event

1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
2. Optional: If you want to add guests to your event, on the left click Search for people and start typing the names of your guests.
3. Click any time on the calendar that doesn't already have an event scheduled.
4. Add a title to the event, and any event details.
5. Click Save.

Tip: To create a longer event, drag your mouse down the page while you're selecting the time.

Learn more at the Calendar Help Center

Find open times for meetings with your team

If someone has shared their calendar with you, or is part of your work, school, or other organization, you can check if they're free or busy when adding them to an event.

1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
2. On the left, click Search for people.
3. Start typing someone’s name and choose the person you want to meet with.
4. At the top left, click Create .
5. Click Suggested times. If the guest you invited has shared their calendar with you, you'll see when they can attend.

Learn more at the Google Calendar Help Center

Find a room or resource

Note: If you don’t see resources, room details, or automatic room suggestions, your administrator might not have set them up for your organization.

1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
2. Create a new event or open an existing one.
3. If you are editing an existing event, click Edit event .
4. If your account is part of an organization with Rooms, click Rooms. Based on who you invite, you can choose from suggested rooms or search for a new one. Click the rooms or resources you want to add.
   • Important: If you can't add a room to an event, Google Calendar may suggest a shortcut to create a duplicate event where you can book a room. This shortcut creates a single event, without any guests.
5. Click Save.

Tip: Account administrators can add new rooms and resources for users to book by using the Admin console.

Learn more at the Google Calendar Help Center

 

Want more calendar basics? Get started with Google Calendar

Next steps

Week 1: Set up mobile devices and customize Gmail and Calendar

 

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