Google Desktop gives you easy access to information on your computer and from the web. It’s a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, computer files, music, photos, chats and web pages that you’ve viewed. By making your computer searchable, Google Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks. It makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google.

Google Desktop doesn’t just help you search your computer; it also helps you gather new information from the web with Sidebar, a new desktop feature that shows you your new email, weather and stock information, personalized news and RSS/Atom feeds, and more. Sidebar is personalized automatically, without any manual configuration required.

Google Desktop includes Sidebar, a panel on your desktop which provides convenient, one-glance access to all sorts of personalized information. Sidebar includes the following plug-ins:

Email: You can read new email, including your Gmail, as soon as you get it. Click on an email subject to read the full email in the details pane. In Options, you can add filters to prevent certain email from showing up in Sidebar. You can filter based on the “from:”, “to:”, “subject:”, words found in the email, and words not found in the email.

News: See the latest news headlines, personalized based on the news articles that you read in Sidebar and in the web browser. You can click on a news headline to read the beginning of the article in the details pane, and if you mark items as uninteresting by clicking the “Don’t show me items like this” button in the details pane, the News panel will show fewer articles that are related to the article you weren’t interested in.

Weather: Keep track of weather forecasts for multiple locations. Click on a weather location to see more details about current conditions as well as the 4-day forecast in the details pane. In Options, you can add new locations, delete existing locations, view temperatures in Fahrenheit or Celsius, and change the order in which locations are displayed. When this panel is minimized, all weather locations are shown one after the other on a single line.

Photos: Watch a slideshow of photos from the web and from your computer. You can click on an image to see a larger view. In Options, you can add photos to the slideshow by selecting folders on your computer and RSS/Atom feeds from the web. Photos from RSS/Atom feeds on frequently visited web pages are also automatically added to the Photos panel by default. You can uncheck “Auto Add Photos from the Web” under the “Photos Online” tab to disable this feature. You can also manually add recent RSS/Atom feeds from sites you’ve visited. Finally, you can set how long each photo is displayed under the “Slideshow Speed” tab.

Stocks: Keep track of up-to-the-minute prices for your favorite stocks. The prices shown are the real-time prices (not 15 minutes delayed), if available. Click the stock’s ticker symbol to see the current price, point change, percent change, daily graph, recent news, and other information in the details pane. In Options, you can add, remove, and change the order in which individual stocks and indices are displayed. Stock prices that you frequently look up on the web will be automatically added to the Stocks panel, unless you choose to uncheck the “Automatically add stocks” checkbox. When minimized, all stock prices are shown one after the other on a single line.

Web Clips: Read RSS and Atom feeds from the web. Click on an item to read the entire clip’s content in the details pane. Feeds are generally updated every 30 minutes. In Options, you can manually add a feed by entering its URL, or select a recent feed to add by clicking the “Add Recent Clips” button. Feeds are automatically added based on the web pages you visit, unless you uncheck the “Automatically add commonly viewed clips” checkbox.

Scratch Pad: Type and save notes for yourself. The Scratch Pad is automatically saved with every letter that you type, so you don’t need to save it manually. It also includes options to save your notes to a file and clear the Scratch Pad entirely.

Quick View: Keep a list of frequently used web pages and files handy. Double-click an item to open it. You can also star items to move them to the top of the list, which will prevent them from disappearing as well. In Options, you can toggle between showing frequently-used items and recent items.

You can also download additional plug-ins, and developers can learn how to use the Sidebar APIs to write their own plug-ins.

Every panel also supports the following panel features:

Details Pane: Click once on an item in a panel and a window with more details will slide out of the panel. Only one details pane can be open at any given time in Sidebar.

Expanded View: Click the title bar or “< <” button in the panel to display a longer list of items from that panel, including a scroll bar.

Double-click to Open: Double-click an item in a panel to open it in a web browser.

Panel Menu: Click the arrow button in a panel’s title bar to display the panel’s menu.

Reorder: Change the order of the panels by dragging the title bar of the panel you want to move and dropping it into its new location.

Resize: Change the height of a panel by dragging its top or bottom edge. The panel next to it will also change in height.

Minimize: Compact a panel down to a single line by selecting the “Minimize” panel menu item.

Restore: When a panel has been minimized, select the “Restore” panel menu item to have it pop back to its previous size.

Options: Select the “Options” panel menu item to change a panel’s settings.

About: Select the “About” panel menu item to learn more about the panel.

Remove: Select the “Remove” panel menu item to remove the panel from Sidebar. You can always add it back by select “Add/Remove Panels” in the Sidebar menu.

Right-click menu: Right-click an item to open it, remove it, or take other actions.

Tooltips: Tooltips are displayed to show additional information. For email, it includes the subject, from, to, and date. For other items, it generally shows the full title and source if the title is truncated.

Sidebar also offers the following general features:

Sidebar Menu: Click the down arrow button in the upper right corner of the Sidebar to see a list of options.

Add/Remove Panels: Select the “Add/Remove Panels” menu item to add new panels and remove existing panels. You can also add any ActiveX control available on your computer to Sidebar.

Resize: Sidebar can be horizontally resized by dragging the left edge if it’s docked to the right side of the screen, and vice versa, to a maximum width of half the width of your computer screen.

Customize Alerts: Select the “Customize Alerts” menu item to enable plug-ins to display pop-up alerts that appear in the lower right corner of your screen. By default, you can enable alerts when Sidebar receives new web clips, news and email.

Autohide: Select the “Auto-If this feature is enabled, Sidebar will slide onto your screen when your mouse is near the edge. Sidebar will disappear again once your mouse is no longer above Sidebar.

Dock Sidebar: Dock Sidebar to either the left or right side of your screen. You can also change which side Sidebar is docked to by dragging the bar with the word “Google” in it to the left or right side of your screen.

Minimize: You can click the minimize icon in the upper right of the sidebar to minimize to the Deskbar or Floating Deskbar.