How to activate the new Gmail
A while ago we talked about the expected new design for Gmail, the world’s most popular email service. A lot of new features were introduced to the web version of Gmail, including a new confidential mood, email snoozing, and a new sidebar. Google announced the new design a couple of days ago, but with more than 1.4 billion users, it won’t be available for everyone at once, it will take a while for everyone to get it. In the new update, Google focused on improving the safety and the privacy of the users, especially with the new confidential mood. In this article, we will check out the new Gmail design, have a quick look on all the new features and in case you don’t know how to activate the new update we will show how to.
Let’s start with Google’s new features to improve the privacy of the users, the main feature in this part was the confidential mood, which allows you to set an expiration date for any private email, or even unsend the email, and this works by not sending the private email to the receiver, a link to the content will be sent, and the email will stay in your mailbox, in case the receiver also use Gmail then the confidential content will be accessed by Gmail, if not, then they will use http to access it.
Another feature within the confidential mood is the two-factor authentication (2FA), through this feature you can ask that the receiver enter a passcode that is received via text messages before being able to open a confidential email.
Google introduced one more feature related to users’ privacy, the Integrated Rights Management (IRM), this means the users will have the right to block the forwarding, copying, downloading, or printing of specific messages. This, of course, won’t prevent people from screenshotting or taking pictures of the emails, but according to Google, the company is trying to solve the problem where users send emails or share information by mistake, and this might have a lot of consequences in some cases.
With the three previously mentioned features Google tried to cover users’ privacy. However, on the security side, Google is rolling out a new redesign for security alerts focusing on phishing scams emails. Google developed new machine-learning algorithms that will check for every email you receive. Once there’s anything wrong, you will receive a color-coded alert, like a big red warning under the message for you to be aware of the scame and to delete the email. This will increase users’ safety, and protect them from spams and other emails with bad or harmful content.
Another new feature that we talked about before is email snoozing. Once you move your cursor above a message in your mailbox, a new hover menu will appear offering you the option to archive, delete, mark as read, or snooze the message. You can now snooze an email or a thread of messages that you don’t have time for right now for later.
Another small but important feature is email nudging, Gmail will now nudge you for some important emails that you might not want to miss, for example, emails with deadlines or important emails from people that you marked important. To do that, Gmail will check out the content of the emails, or the sender in order to notify you in case you forget about it. This will raise the question of privacy, for that Google said that the new feature is so similar to Smart Replies on the Gmail app, which is now coming to the web version as well.
A small but worth mentioning feature is the option to unsubscribe for mailing lists, in case Gmail notes that the receive a lot of emails from the same sender but they don’t usually read them.
As a part of this new update, Google also improved the user interface of Gmail. Once you start using the new web interface of Gmail, you will be able to choose between three display moods, Default, Comfortable, and Compact. If you usually get confused because there is a lot of emails on the same page, then you can choose the Default mood, or the comfortable one, the only difference between those two is that you can see the attachment and even open them without entering the message in the default one, while in the comfortable you will see the same amount of emails per page but without the attachments, the Compact mood is for those who like to see as many emails as they can in one page, which is similar to the older view of Gmail, if you don’t like changes, then you will prefer the Compact mood.
Another change in the new Gmail is a new sidebar, the new sidebar has three G suit options or shortcuts so far, first you have Google Calendar, to help users check their schedules, put reminders, and set appointments without the need for another tab, the second shortcut is Google Keep, which is Google’s notes app, you can take a new note while you are checking you emails, Google Keep is also available for Android and iOS, that means that when you take a note on Gmail, it will be sync to your smartphone app, the third shortcut is a new Google Tasks shortcut, where you can put some tasks or to-do lists, Google introduced a separate Tasks app for Android and iOS, so all your tasks will be available on your phone as well. The new sidebar will help the integration between G suite apps and will introduce more users to the three apps in the sidebar.
A small but important thing in the new update is the ability to collapse the left sidebar, where you usually find links to go through Gmail boxes, and by that you can now open more space for your messages, especially if you choose to use the Default or the Comfortable mood where the messages are bigger and take more space.
Want to start using the new Gmail?
Now that you know almost everything about the new update for Gmail, it’s time to try it. Google didn’t launch the new Gmail for everyone yet. Well, even if it’s there, you have to ask for it first. All you need to do is to press the setting button on the top-right of the screen and choose the first option which is “try the new Gmail”, and the page will reload with the new Gmail. In case you didn’t find that option then you didn’t get the new update yet. Don’t panic, Gmail has more than 1.4 billion users, it needs some time to get to everyone.
This update is the biggest update or redesign for Gmail since its launch in 2004, but if you take a deeper look on the new Gmail, and Google Inbox app, we will notice that some new features in the new Gmail, are already in the Inbox app, like being able to open the attachment from your inbox, snoozing, and smart replies. We can see that Google is not updating Gmail, as much as Inbox, and that’s maybe because of the wide range of Gmail users, applying a lot of changes to Gmail will drive the users away, while Google Inbox will be always there for those users who would like to stay up to date with every new feature by Google. Anyway, the new Gmail still needs some time to prove itself in front of the users, but all the changes seem to be promising.
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