and there’s a login from China or Nigeria), then I know that something is wrong and I need to take action. And I know that if I ever see a location that I’ve never been to accessing my Gmail account (say you’re in Seattle and all of the sudden there’s a login from Miami or you’re in the U.S. When you’re traveling, it’s kind of fun to see where Gmail thinks you’ve been accessing it.

It’s one of the reasons why I really like the feature. So this is a quick way to find out if your account has been accessed from someplace other than where you expect. The Activity Information window has interesting data because when an account gets hacked or compromised, it’s usually happening from overseas. This is really neat feature – one that can ultimately protect your Gmail account from hackers. For instance, if I was logged into Gmail and opened the Activity Information window, I’d see that I’m accessing it from my IP address, which is somewhere in the United States. When you click the link, Gmail opens an Activity Information window which displays what the access type was, what the IP address was, and the date of the access. If you have a Gmail account and you log in, there’s a link in the lower right corner that either reads “The latest activity was # minutes ago” or “Open in # of other places” followed by a Details link.