Gmail uses a common timing algorithm to fetch messages from POP accounts, one you can somewhat game, but sometimes you want to get at a message you knowhas arrived. A new Labs feature adds a manual refresh button for POP grabbing.

Head to your Labs settings and enable the “Refresh POP accounts” lab, then hit “Save changes” at the bottom or top of the page. From then on, you’ll see a “Refresh” link to the right of your inbox buttons. Hit it and Gmail will poll any email accounts you’ve set it up to fetch from. Want to get started importing your other mail accounts into Gmail?

Gmail has officially integrated several of our favorite Labs-only features into Gmail proper, including previously mentioned features like search autocomplete, Go to Label (one of the biggies in my Gmail master redux), forgotten attachment detector, YouTube previews, and more.

Search autocomplete automatically suggests search criteria based on common searches; Go to Label adds excellent keyboard shortcuts for navigating your account (type ‘g’ + ‘label name’); forgotten attachment detector alerts you before you send an attachment-less message that appears to promise one; YouTube preview, like it sounds, lets you watch linked videos inside Gmail without opening a new window; custom label colors lets you set any color to any label; and the vacation dates feature lets you set the dates you’ll be away so your auto-responders don’t go out before or after your vacation begins or ends.

On the flip side, Gmail also retired five less popular features: Muzzle, Fixed Width Font, Email Addict, Location in Signature, and Random Signature.

Got another Labs feature you’d like to see graduate Labs and join the default Gmail feature set? Got one you’d like to see retired? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Chrome: We love Gina’s Better Gmail Firefox extension, a bundle of user scripts that improves the Gmail experience. Now that Google’s beefed up support for Chrome extensions, reader Dimitar Gruev has taken a shot at bringing an unofficial Better Gmail to Chrome. This new Chrome extension is an unofficial Better Gmail for Chrome that was inspired by Gina’s Firefox extension and our earlier Better Gmail for Chrome bag o’scripts.

Once installed, access Better Gmail’s options by clicking the wrench -> Extensions -> Better Gmail Options. Tick the boxes of the features you want activated and you’re good to go. You can choose to hide little used fields like “Invite Friends,” remove ads, show the number of unread emails in the favicon, and more.

Gruev says future versions of Better Gmail will hide spam count, move to next message on delete or archive, and include support for POP3 email. A big round of applause goes to Gruev for putting this together. What kinds of features do you hope for in future versions of Better Gmail? Share your ideas in the comments.

Gmail is set to become Google’s next major push into social media. According to The Wall Street Journal, the popular webmail service will soon launch a new feature for sharing content and status updates with friends. [Update: We think Google might announce these features on Tuesday]

As WSJ points out, Gmail users can already update their statuses — sort of — through Gmail’s chat feature. Currently, this feature is more akin to the traditional IM “away message.” However, with this new social push, Gmail will offer a timeline-view of your friends’ status updates, just like on Facebook and Twitter.

Those updates might come from both Gmail and third-party services. According to WSJ, Google-owned YouTube and Picasa will be integrated into the stream. The huge question then is whether or not the new feature will include updates from Twitter and Facebook.

If so, the new features could be thought of more like a TweetDeck or Seesmic, looking to provide an aggregate view of your friends’ social media activities along with the ability to push status updates to the services you use from inside of Gmail. If not, it could be thought of as a major competitor to Twitter and Facebook as Gmail looks to covert its millions of e-mail users into adherents to a whole new breed of social media service.

An issue with the latter, however, is that Gmail has historically added people to your contacts based on e-mail interactions. Hence, this contact list often varies significantly from your friends on social sites where relationships need to be made explicitly.

In other words, your Gmail contacts aren’t necessarily the same people you want to share status updates, photos and videos with. This is an issue that shouldn’t be overlooked in evaluating the new features Google is soon to unveil.

The Google Search box in Gmail Labs makes it easy to quickly search and paste results into an email without ever clicking away. If you don’t like sidebar clutter, a button on your email toolbar now offers the same search-and-paste convenience.

If you use a script or add-on that hides your Gmail sidebar boxes, or you’d rather keep the Google Search toolbar minimized, you can now activate the bottom-right search box pop-in with the “G” button on your email composition toolbar. Hit it, search for what you need, then hit the arrow icon when you hover over a result to grab the full result text or just the URL link and paste it into your email.

Small convenience, sure, but perfect for when you’re just looking to pass on a helpful link or recommendation.