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foreign
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so that was a bit dramatic but you might
be surprised
in addition to regular encryption there
are some interesting ways that you can
control the emails you send through
gmail
welcome to tech tip tuesday a segment of
this channel where i share a privacy or
security tip that you can start using
in five minutes or less today i'm going
to introduce you to confidential mode a
double 07
super secret spy feature that you
probably didn't even realize you could
use in gmail
and if you stick around with me to the
end i'll have some bonus tips for gmail
that you won't want to miss
now let me start off by saying that
while sending self-destructing emails is
pretty cool it's not something you need
to do with every single email you send
in fact
you'll probably annoy your friends and
family if you do that
oh come on another one josh
yeah like i said not good if you're
wanting to find ways to generally secure
your gmail account i highly recommend
you consider using two-factor
authentication on your account a means
of verifying your identity beyond your
password this can be done through the
google authenticator app which
was another tech tip tuesday video we've
done or through a 2fa security key like
this one from yubikey
anyway that's not what we're here to
talk about today we're talking about the
little known confidential mode in gmail
take a look at my screen for a moment
where i'll show you where to find it
when you're composing a new email
look for that little icon on the bottom
that looks like a lock with a timer in
front of it
when you click here you'll see two
different options come up the first
option
allows you to set an expiration for the
email while not nearly as dramatic as
the explosion i showed you earlier
it does give you a little more control
over how long your email is available to
be viewed the second option allows for
sms verification that requires the
recipient of your email to first receive
a text message on a phone number
you provide gmail before they can open
and read your email
google also claims that confidential
mode provides extra protection such as
limits on the ability to forward copy or
print the email
but the truth is that a user can still
screenshot that email and then copy
print or forward that screenshot so
the privacy isn't entirely foolproof
confidential mode works best when you're
sending an email to another gmail user
but it still works for those who don't
have a gmail address
the only difference is that instead of
receiving a regular email the user of
services other than gmail will get an
email with a link
to view that email in their browser
which requires a password or login
disclaimer alert although the messages
can be set to expire for your recipient
it's not entirely clear
how long google keeps that message on
its servers so for this reason
gmail's confidential mode shouldn't be
relied upon as the ultimate security
measure
merely as an extra privacy measure again
this
isn't a feature you should be using
every single day but it's helpful to
know that confidential mode exists
so you can have a little more control
over those messages when you might want
to be sending something more time
sensitive or
a private email now as promised i'd like
to share some bonus tips for gmail power
users
first did you know that gmail gives you
the ability to create infinite email
addresses
it's true and you can use addresses like
your name plus
spam gmail.com to help you take better
control of your inbox
i've got an entire video describing how
this is done that you can watch here
second if you're truly paranoid about
your online security i advise you apply
for google advanced protection a program
built
for activists journalists and others who
want to maintain the highest level of
privacy and security
i'll put links to the application page
in the description below and it's
entirely free if you thought this was
helpful you're going to love the rest of
these tech tip tuesday videos which i
put together in a playlist oh
and if you don't click on that like
button this video is going to
self-destruct in
you still watching you're crazy