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Gmail now knows who you want to e-mail

A new Gmail Labs feature goes over old conversations and gives you recommendations on people it thinks you want to include in a new message.

Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Josh Lowensohn

Google's Gmail Labs has just rolled out a useful, but mildly creepy feature that gives you suggestions on who you should e-mail based on previous conversations. So, if you've had threads going with a group of people, it will recommend some of those folks once you've added at least two addresses in the recipients field. Best part is, they don't even have to be in a group of contacts you've created in Gmail's contacts manager.

I got this to work to an almost uncanny level. It handles things like family members without a hitch, but where it gets useful is in pulling up people you've recently been corresponding with and giving you a one-click link that adds them to the message. Short of organizing these people to a group (in which you may need to add or delete someone on a per-message basis), or doing a reply-all on an old message, this is a really fast way to get another thread started with the same group.

Now all Gmail needs is a quick way to take these contacts and add them to a sending group without leaving the message, something that can only be done in Gmail's contact manager.


Gmail can now figure out if you're trying to start up another conversation thread with people you've recently been talking to, saving you some time on starting a new message thread, or simply using a reply all on an old one. Google