Nearly 50% of us are using Gmail as our email client, and it’s fantastic. But it can be even better.

Today, I’ll share my 3 favorite plugins for turning this sedan into a Cadillac.

1. Boomerang

It’s been several years, and one of the features I still miss about Outlook is the ability to schedule messages to send later. I’m an early bird, but I hate to send emails to my team at that time, knowing their phones are going to wake them up. So I have to save the message as a draft and remember to send it later. Not the best solution. But now there’s a better option: Boomerang. This nifty plugin lets you take control of when you send and receive email messages. Check out this video demonstration.

The only catch is that it’s in private beta, meaning that you need an invitation code. But if you’ll follow @baydinsoftware on Twitter and tweet your request, they promise a code within 24 hours.

2. Rapportive

Would you trade a clutter pile in your home for a fully furnished office? Then, you’ll surely want to trade Google Ads for a real-time update on your contacts. And you can do that very easily – just by downloading Rapportive.

I’ve discovered two great benefits:

– For folks that I’d only met via email, I can see links to their Twitter or Linkedin profiles – making it very easy to connect on those platforms as well.

– For people that I talk with frequently, I get their current context. For my business partner Holly, for example, I can get a read on whether she’s knee-deep in an urgent project or has a few minutes for a spontaneous brainstorm session.

One issue I had was getting my own profile to show up correctly for different email addresses. Through a conversation on Twitter, I learned that Rapportive’s support team will link several email addresses to one profile if you’ll just email them the request.

3. WiseStamp

Banish boring email signatures. With WiseStamp, you can bring your emails to life with a variety of dynamic content. Share your latest few tweets, blog posts, or even recently listed eBay items. Watch this video to see how.

That’s a wrap on my top three. What other plugins can’t you live without? I’d love to hear about your favorites in the comments.