When attaching certain documents to emails I usually start out the email by saying “Attached is the report about….” or whatever and sometimes I dig around to get the file size and exact filename and include that, too. I think its good netiquette to tell people what I’ve sent them, along with the filename and the file size so they can see at-a-glance if they can open the file (e.g. do they have MS Excel?) or if the download of the file will be too long (maybe the recipient is in a rush and using dial-up?).

Just that little distraction means I sometimes forget to attach the document I was so thoughtfully describing. Now Gmail has thought of that. New in Labs: Forgotten attachment detector says:

Many of us have experienced the embarrassment of having sent a message without attaching the file we said we were going to attach. Turn on the Forgotten Attachment Detector in Labs, and you’ll get an alert if you mention attaching a file but forget to do so.

So why are you still reading this? Go ahead and turn your Gmail Forgotten attachment detector on and give it a text drive!