Google is a great platform over the internet who helps you to serve for all your needs including Email, FTP Drive, Web Photo albums, Wallet, Developments etc. Depends on our use we try to utilize their all available facilities. There were days when people were chatting over Yahoo, ICQ, MSN and few others But those days are over. These days they most of the time chat over Gtalk including few other chatting media. Most of us are using google chat in day to day routine but most of us doesn’t know lots of hidden tricks which can help you for better chatting experience. Let me highlight few of them, which surely amaze you not because they are awesome tricks but they are not known to you.
Hidden Tricks for Google Chat
1. Instant language Translation
Most of the time we need to understand meaning of many words specially during chat in language we are not proficient with. Google chat will give you an wonderful features, which will help you to translate your chat instantly in any available native language. You mayconvert from English to Arabic, Arabic to English or Hindi to Eng and Eng to Hindi or any other available language.
- Add bot email and invite it for Chatting
- Format: [from language]2[to language]@bot.talk.google.com
Example: en2ar@ bot.talk.google.com and en2ar@ bot.talk.google.com
Once you invite your preferred translation language to chat, within 1-2 seconds you can see it in your buddy list. That’s all, you are all set to start using instant translation service by Google. Let’s assume you have selected Arabic to English translation option, you can write anything in Arabic inside chat window and you will get English translation as reply.
2. Profile pictures during Chat
In above print screen of “Arabic to English translation” you can see my profile pic while chatting. But there could be lots of people who won’t be able to see this pic while chatting over GTalk. Let’s learn how you can enable your profile picture display during chat!
Step i: Click on “Gear” icon on top right corner of your gmail account
Step ii: Select “Labs” tab from all available tabs on the top
Step iii: Click on “Enable” in “Pictures in Chat” lab option
Step iv: Click on “Save Changes” button at bottom of the web page
Now, when you do chatting using gmail, you can see thumbnails of yours and your friends during chat.
3. Remove unwanted contacts from Gtalk chat list
We most of the time adding friends in our Gmail contacts and lots of time even if we send email to any of gmail users, you will get them added to your contacts and appears in chatwindow automatically. And because of this, our Gtalk chat list is flooded with manyunwanted contacts. Let’s see how you can remove some of them?
- Take mouse over such contact in chat window
- On right bottom, you can see a small arrow, click on that
- Click on “Never Show” option
Now, whenever you look into your gtalk chat list, you won’t found those contacts and they are removed from your chat list.
4. Bold, strike-through, Italic Font Effect in Chat
We generally don’t care of what font we are using while chatting. But sometimes to highlight few words during chat, we might need special effects on fonts we are using. Currently most of us using double quotation mark to highlight such words/small sentences. Rather we can use few tricks which will help you to make them Bold, underlined or italic. Kindly follow codes below:
To achieve above effects, I have used below codes
Bold: *Techtiptricks*
Italic: _Techtiptricks_
strike-through: -Techtiptricks-
To make font bold you may use asterisk sign at start and end point. Similarly for Italic use ‘underscore’ and ‘dash’ to make it strike-through.
5. Change placing of Chat window to Right side
By default your Chat friend list comes on left side, below Inbox and other folders. Though it’s a good idea to compact the list and keep main area larger. But sometimes if you have lots of folders, you have to scroll to view all of them, similarly half of your friend-list will not be visible and you may need to scroll down to see who is online apart from few visible contacts. You always can use few steps suggested below to achieve this.
- As shown in Step 2, open Settings and select “Labs”
- Scroll down and find “Right-side Chat” option and simple Enable that
- Save changes
Once you save changes, your browser will refresh gmail and you can see all Inbox and other folders on left side as full left panel and right full panel will be with your Chat list.
6. Find Chat history
Though it’s quite easy, still few of you might not know that there are two ways you can find previous chat history if you haven’t selected “off the record” for any selected contact. We will see what is “Off the record” little later.
Method 1: On left panel after Inbox and other folders/labels, you can found “Chat” , if it’s not there, click on “More” at bottom and you will get “Chat” folder. This is similar to your Facebook “Messages” and you will get user wise chat history.
Method 2: In search box on the top of your Gmail, you can write “Chat: xyz” – Where xyz is the email address of your friend for whom you are looking for chat history.
7. Off the Record – Chat about Confidential Data/Information
We lots of time sharing our credit card details, passwords, company sensitive information etc. over chat with a friend, relative or co-worker. If you have not placed your chat for off the record, all your information is being stored in Gmail database. Though gmail is having fully secure data center and your data is fully safe but what is your friend’s account gets hack by someone and hacker can easily steal your chat history and all confidential data you discussed over chat. Let’s understand how you can avoid such incidents.
Always follow below steps to go Off the record while using any sensitive information overchat.
- In your chat window, Click on Top right corner More icon and select “Off the Record”
Now, you are safe to use confidential information in your Chat. Once you feel you have completed your chat with all sensitive information, it’s always preferred you turn on back this feature. Otherwise you will not be able to get your normal chat history with this contact; whenever you required.
I know by now, you would have lost from where you started, so just scroll back on top and go fastly once again and try them one by one 
This post was written by: Gadhvi Devraj
Devraj is a Tech geek and founder of Worldtechlovers
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