One Tech Tool That Solved Two Problems:

cloudHQ Gmail Label and Email Sharing

@joe_edtech/
@LisaBerghoff

I've always been a fan of serendipity. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Over the summer, a friend of mine said that she really needed to share a folder of emails (in Gmail, it is called a Label) with a colleague. She wanted to be able to do that without opening each email individually and forwarding it. I did a quick search and found cloudHQ, a Chrome extension with great reviews that purported to do just that. So, I installed it - then I found out it was even better than advertised.

Once installed and activated (it may ask you to sign in and authorize it multiple times) you'll see a new button at the top of your Gmail inbox.

It is pretty simple to use. Once you have authorized the extension and click the button, you'll get a pop-up box prompting you for the name of the label you want to share and the email addresses of the people with whom you want to share. 

If that were the end of the story, it would be good enough. But it gets better. When you install the extension and open an email message, you'll see an entirely new set of menu options:

In addition to the usual choices, you have the option to change the name of the email (the pencil icon), share a link to the email (the chain link icon), or SNOOZE the email (the alarm clock icon). I personally don't have any use for the first two, but I've been looking for a good option to snooze emails for a long time. If I get an email in my inbox that requires some action on my behalf, but the action isn't required for a significant amount of time I can click the snooze icon and hide the email until it is important. 

You can choose from a list of preselected Snooze times, or you can select an exact date and time. The email will be hidden until that time and will then appear at the top of your inbox. 

cloudHQ is a "freemium" service, but I only use the free stuff. If you run your own business or have run an organization outside of school, it might be useful to look into the paid services for syncing and backing up emails. I would love to tell you that I researched this tool and knew all of this in advance of sending it to my friend. But I didn't. It was just serendipity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you've found a better way to share labels or snooze emails, tell us about it below.