Ever wish you’d e-mailed that pleading to the court a few minutes or even a few days earlier? Ever regret having missed the deadline for exercising that option? Ever wish you’d e-mailed a birthday wish to your partner on the actual birthday? Never again miss a deadline — or at least never again appear to miss a deadline — thanks to a feature launched today as part of Google’s Gmail called Gmail Custom Time.

Now, when composing an e-mail using Gmail, just set the date it should appear to have been received and it will land in the recipient’s inbox in the appropriate chronological order. You can even decide whether to have the e-mail show up as read or unread. The new feature will allow you to backdate only to April 1, 2004. And it limits users to 10 custom time e-mails a year, so that people don’t lose faith in the accuracy of time.

If this sounds like a useful tool, I’d suggest you act fast. Even though it was launched just today, I suspect it may be gone by tomorrow.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.