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Despite what you may think of the behemoth that is Google (and despite the fact that it’s now been in beta for who knows how many years), there is no denying just how powerful a tool Gmail has become for many freelancers – nomadic or not. And yet many users don’t get half as much out of it as they could.

As a freelancing, work-from-anywhere digital nomad, Gmail could well be your best friend – more than just an email account, it can become a hub to help manage all the freelancing work you do – allowing you to win the email inbox battle and enjoy your work-from-anywhere freelancing career more than ever.

The following 7 tips show you just a fraction of the features that Gmail now offers but should set you well on the way to becoming a Gmail power-user…

1 Google Aps

If your freelancing business requires a more professional image because of the type of clients you work with (corporates, larger companies etc.) then using an email address that ends @gmail.com might not cut it. That’s where Google Apps for Business comes in.

This enables you to use your own domain name with Google’s services (gmail, docs, etc.) – meaning you get to use Gmail with yourdomain.com as the email address. There’s the Premier edition which costs $50/per user/per year or if you don’t need the additional security, support & storage you can use the Standard edition for free.

Set-up is relatively straight-forward even for non-tech types although you will need to be comfortable fiddling with MX records to get email working. The instructions are decent though so it shouldn’t be a problem.

But whether you use Gmail with your own domain or not, as a freelancer there are some pretty powerful tools at your fingertips that you may not even realise are there…

2 Labs

In order to access some of the best features within Gmail, you’ll need to first enable Google Labs within your gmail account. Do this by going to Settings > Labs > Select “Enable” on one or more bits of functionality you’d like to enable > Click “Save”.

Once you’ve done this, you should now see the little green lab bottle in the top right hand corner of your screen which now gives you one click access to the Labs settings, as follows:

3 Multiple Inboxes

One of the newer additions to Labs, enabling this feature lets you set up the ability to show more than one inbox on your gmail home page. This is great if (as described below), you use your gmail account to manage all your other email accounts/addresses.

4 Multiple Accounts

This, in my opinion, is one of the *best* things about Gmail (and you can do this with any gmail account, not just a Google Apps account). If as a freelancer, you use a multitude of different email addresses but either have to log into each webmail account separately or download all accounts into a desktop app to manage your email, then you’ll love this functionality.

You can set up Gmail to easily retrieve emails from other accounts using POP3 which is nothing new, however Gmail also then gives you the ability to “Send mail as” which basically lets you send email from any other email address you own through your Gmail account. Really handy to prevent your clients from getting confused.

You can then choose to either reply from the same address to which the message was sent or always reply from default address.

5 Undo Send

Another one of the newer features, enabling this will give you a 5-10 second window to “undo” the sending of an email – perfect for those times when you suddenly realise you’ve forgotten to add that attachment for a client, as soon as you hit the “Send” button.

6 Filters

Filters are essential to help freelancers manage email automatically. By setting up rules for each filter, you can tell Gmail how to deal with email you receive that matches certain criteria.

For example, I have a filter set up to auto-process (mark as read & then label) all Paypal payment notifications from any LIP product sold.

7 Offline access

The last excuse many people gave for not using Gmail is no longer valid! With offline Gmail enabled, you can now use your Gmail account even with no internet access – and once you are connected, the whole thing syncs seamlessly. For patchy internet connections, there’s also an “unstable” connection mode which syncs when it gets access but otherwise switches seamlessly between online and offline mode.

As I said before, these are just a few of the features available to you in your Gmail account…what other favourite tips can you share?