A new Gmail Labs feature enables email users to search the Internet from within Gmail rather than having to launch a new window.

Gmail is becoming a more powerful email platform, thanks to Gmail Labs. Google has been able to add features like “Add photos”, preview YouTube, Flickr and Yelp reviews in email, a location signature (you can add the location where you are sending emails from), SMS Messaging in email and more.

The latest one is “Google Search” available through Google Labs. Previously, if you are chatting or if you want to find an item in Google search, you would have to open a new page and perform the search. Now, however, once you enable the “Google Search” in Labs, you can search from within the email page itself.

To activate this setting from within Gmail, click on "Labs" on the top right of the screen, then click "enable" beside the Google Search feature. After you enable this feature by clicking "Save Changes," it will show a small Web search window on the left side of your inbox.

When you search for a term, it will open a small window and you can browse within Gmail or open a new window. The small window shows individual results and you can either copy a link, or copy the information by going to the individual result and you will see a green arrow. When you click this green arrow, you will see three options: “Paste result”, “Paste URL” and “Send Email." You can choose any one of them.

The official Gmail blog says you can use this feature for the following:

• If you're reading a message, you can start a reply to the message with the search result as the first thing in your reply.
• If you're writing a message, you can paste the result, or just the URL into your message.
• If you're chatting with someone, you can send the result via chat.
• You can also always compose a new message to send the search result