Gspace is an add-on to the Firefox browser that allows you to use your 5+GB of Gmail storage as drive space.

Start by downloading GSpace from http://addons.mozilla.org. If you enter GSpace in the search box at the top of the screen, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

The download process is straightforward and requires Firefox to restart. Once that is done you’ll notice that the Tools menu now has an option labeled “GSpace”. When you select that option, Firefox will open a new tab that looks and works like a file transfer client. There is also a little icon on the Firefox status bar to bring up an embedded browser window to manage your files.

The first time you use GSpace, you will want to click on “Manage Accounts”. Enter your Gmail credentials and you’re ready to go. Don’t forget, if you host your own domain with Google you can use that account as additional, but separate space.

You should find GSpace very easy to use. It operates much like any other graphical file transfer program with the files from your computer on the left and the remote files on Google on the right. Transferring data is done by highlighting files or folders then using the arrows to move items back and forth. Status windows at the bottom of the screen show which items are being transferred and which are done. You can create a folder hierarchy in GSpace just like any other filesystem on your computer or network.

What’s really happening behind the scenes is Gmail is mailing you a message with your files as attachements. If you check your inbox you will see that you have received a message from yourself. You can retrieve the files from any computer, even if it does not have the GSpace add-on installed, by using the web browser and downloading the file via the Gmail web interface. Once you delete the files in Gmail, they no longer show up in Gspace, however I found deleting files from GSpace appeared to delete the files and associated email messages, but they came right back moments later.

Here’s today’s quick tip:

Create a filter that looks for messages from you, or with the subject that starts with GSPACE, then labels it with something like GSPACE and skips the inbox. Now the files you sent to Gmail with GSpace are automatically processed and stored out of the way.

And as a final note, Google’s chat feature now supports group chats and graphical emoticons. To start a group chat, just click “Group Chat” from the options menu when chatting.