Gmail – the world’s most popular email service had announced a new web interface or design a couple of weeks ago and now Google has launched the update comprising a refreshed design, look and also a handful of new features. The new design looks a bit cleaner like recent Google Calendar refresh update, with many Material Design Influences.
The major changes we see are email snoozing, nudging, and confidential mode. This latest update begins a global phased rollout, but it won’t be available to all 1.4 billion Gmail users right away. The first bunch of people to get it will be invited to opt in ‘Try the new Option’ before being able to just turn it on themselves. If you can’t see it yet, don’t worry, it’s coming soon. In case if you aren’t satisfied or uncomfortable with the new design, you can switch back to classic Gmail down the road.
The lead product manager for Gmail, Jacob Bank said that Google’s new design was done with an aim of ‘making people safer and more productive’. The safety pillar works on the new confidential mode which allows the sender to revoke it completely or set an expiration date for a sensitive email. Here, Google doesn’t send the private content directly, but you are just sending a link to the content, which lives in your mailbox and is accessed by the recipient either via their Gmail account or other email services.
In both cases, the sender is in charge of how long the other party can access the message. You are handing out a time-limited access license.
Gmail Security Update:
IRM: Integrated Rights Management (IRM) is a business-centric feature making it into the new Gmail, allowing the user to block the copying, forwarding, downloading or printing of particular messages.
2FA: Another feature added under the umbrella of a confidential mode is Two-factor authentication (2FA) on a per-message basis. The user can request the recipient confirm with a passcode received via SMS before they open a confidential email. Both IRM and 2FA seems like they won’t be available right away, but Google promises them in the coming weeks.
Security Warnings:
This feature will bring you warnings to highlight the potentially malicious emails coming through.
Snoozing:
Email snoozing isn’t a new feature for the third-party email clients and Google now integrated it directly into Gmail. It works with a new hover menu that comprises archive, delete, mark as read, or snooze for later. This makes Gmail on the web look like an app.
Another feature added to the web version is, you can now tap into email attachments directly from the inbox without opening up the conversation.
Nudging:
This feature helps you to follow up and respond to messages that you have been putting off. This saves people from making a big mistake. To find out which message requires your attention, Google looks at a few signals like who sent you an email and whether it has certain content.
All these features such as Snoozing, smart reply, attachments tappable are already available in Google’s Inbox app. Bank also said that Google isn’t removing any Gmail previous features in this redesign, it’s only adding the new ones.
Google Tasks And Panels:
Google Tasks is a new mobile app released for both iOS and Android. In this app, the right side of Gmail is getting a collapsible panel that provides fast access to other G Suite apps such as Calendar, Keep and Tasks.
With the help of panels, the user will be able to collapse the left side if he/she want more space for emails.
Google To-Do List:
Here, users can drag-and-drop emails from Gmail straight into Google’s new Tasks web app, to automatically create to-dos. Businesses in the G Suite Early Adopter Program can start trying out the new feature, by turning them on in the admin console.
Unsubscribe Option:
If you want to block or unsubscribe emails from a particular list where you never read them, Gmail asks you to unsubscribe to mailing lists if it notes that they get a lot of emails.
How to Enable the new Gmail web interface?
1. Sign-in to your Gmail account.
2. On the top-right corner of the inbox, click on cog/gear icon.
3. If Gmail makes the new design available for your account, you’ll see an option for “Try the new Gmail” on top, click it.
4. The page reloads and you’ll have to click Next on the pop-up and then choose a view for your inbox.
- Here you find few options and most people like “Default” because it shows the most information per message, but “Comfortable” is a good choice as well. You can always change this view later at any time from the cog/gear icon.
5. Click OKand you can now use the new interface!
If at all you want to go back to the “old” interface, repeat the steps from the cog/gear icon to return to it. The option isn’t available for everyone right away, and Google says it will be rolling it out to all users over the course of several weeks before finally enabling it by default. Google will likely be refining and improving small parts of the interface as it rolls out to everyone as well.
