What you'll learn
What you'll need
10 minutes
Google Workspace account — Don't have one? Start your 14-day trial today.
In this tutorial
If you turned off notifications for your Google Workspace services when you were out of the office, turn them back on.
Turn on Google Calendar event notifications:
- In Calendar, click Settings Settings.
- On the left under General, click Event settings.
- Click Notificationsand select an option:
- Off
- Desktop notifications
- Alerts
- (Optional) To set up a sound for your incoming notifications, check the Play notification soundsbox.
- (Optional) To manage your notifications, on the left, click your calendar General notifications.
- Next to each option, click the Down arrowand select Noneor Email.
Turn Google Chat notifications on or off:
For messages in Chat:
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top right, click Settings See all settings.
- At the top, click the Chat and Meettab.
- Next to "Chat settings," click Manage chat settings.
- To turn on notifications for Google Chat messages, under "Desktop notifications," check the box next to "Allow chat notifications."
For Chat messages in Gmail:
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top right, click Settings See all settings.
- At the top, click the Chat and Meettab.
- Next to "Chat settings," click Manage chat settings.
- To turn on notifications for Google Chat messages, under "Desktop notifications," check the box next to "Allow chat notifications."
Note:To use Vacation responder, your account must be at least 24 hours old.
- Open Gmail .
- At the top right, click Settings See all settings.
- Scroll down to Vacation responderand select Vacation responder onor 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.
Reply to new meeting invitations
When you get an invitation to an event, it appears on your calendar. You also get invitations by email if you subscribe to email notifications. If you're using Gmail, you can respond to the invitation in the email invite.
Reply to an invitation:
- In the calendar grid, click the event.
- At the bottom next to Going?, click Yes, No, or Maybe.
Tip: To respond to the event from Gmail, open the email and next to Going?, click Yes, No, or Maybe.
All guests can propose a new time, except for events with more than 200 guests or all-day events.
Create a task from an email:
- Go to Gmail .
- On the right, click Tasks.
- Find the email you want to save as a task.
- Drag and drop the email to the side panel.
- To add a date and time, click Date/time.
Make sure you haven’t missed any important changes to Google Drive files or to-do items in other Google Workspace services, such as Tasks in Calendar or Gmail.
You can keep track of changes to items created in or uploaded to Drive. You can also see specific information about your files and folders. To view the activity for a specific file or folder, select the file or folder and click Information.
See Drive activity on the Activity tab:
Access changes made to your files in Drive and keep track of who made those changes. You might notice changes when someone:
- Edits or comments in a file
- Renames a file or folder
- Moves or removes a file or folder
- Uploads a new file to a folder
- Shares or unshares an item
Important:Version history for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides is different than history for .pdf files, images, and other files stored in Drive. Learn how to access the history of changes for Google files .
See Drive activity on the Details tab:
- In Drive
at the top of the Activity pane, click Detailsto see information and changes, such as:
- File type and owner.
- Folder size and number of items.
- Person who last modified, created, or opened the item.
- Click Editto add a description of the item.
View Tasks on a web browser:
Tip:In Gmail spaces, you can create, assign, edit, complete, and delete group tasks .
See changes at a glance:
- On your computer, go to drive.google.com .
- On the left click My Drive.
- In the upper right, click Info.
- Select an option. To access:
- Recent changes, select an option:
- Click Activity.
- Scroll down the right side.
- The activity of a specific file or folder, click the file or folder.
- Recent changes, select an option:
See or revert to an earlier version:
- In Drive , open your file.
- Click File Version history See version history.
- Click a timestamp to see a previous version of the file. Below the timestamp, you’ll see:
- Names of people who edited the document.
- A color next to each person’s name. The edits they made appear in that color.
- (Optional) To revert to this version, click Restore this version.
To find out about current priorities or upcoming plans, send an email to your team or send a message to your co-workers in Chat.
- On your computer, go to Gmail .
- At the top left, click Compose.
- In the "To" field, add recipients. You can also add recipients:
- In the "Cc" and "Bcc" fields.
- When you compose a message, with a "+ sign" or "@mention" and the contact's name in the text field.
- Add a subject.
- Write your message.
- At the bottom of the page, click Send.
Tip:To add individual recipients and groups of contacts you created with labels, click To:.
Send a direct message to someone:
- Go to Google Chat or your Gmail account .
- If the name isn’t already under "Chat," click Start a chat.
- Enter a name or email address. Suggestions appear as you enter text.
- To send a 1:1 message to someone outside of your organization, enter their email address.
- Click the person you want to message.
- Enter a message, then click Send.
Start a group conversation:
- Go to Google Chat or your Gmail account .
- Under "Chat," click on an existing group conversation, enter a messageclick Send.
- If the group conversation isn’t under "Chat,” click Start a chat Start group conversation.
- Enter a name or email address. Suggestions appear as you enter text.
- Click Done.
- Enter a message, then click Send.
If you created a transition doc for your co-workers while you were out of the office, check to see if there are any updates or changes to it.
- On your computer, go to drive.google.com .
- On the left click My Drive.
- In the upper right, click Info.
- Select an option. To access:
- Recent changes, select an option:
- Click Activity.
- Scroll down the right side.
- The activity of a specific file or folder, click the file or folder.
- Recent changes, select an option:
Want to see tasks assigned to you or due on a specific day? Create a filter view in Sheets .
At the top, click Data Filter views Create new filter view. | |
In the top left corner, click next to Nameand enter a name for the filter view. | |
Click the arrows in the column headers and select options to sort and filter the data. | |
(Optional) To email a link to the filter view, copy the URL and paste it in an email. | |
At the top right, click Closeto close your filter view. Your filter view is automatically saved. |
Google, Google Workspace, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. All other company and product names are trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.