The Amazing New Gmail User Interface 2018

Google has been trying to revamp its user interface look and feel for its different applications for a long time. This year in 2018 Google has been able to bring about certain changes in its Gmail user interface that has not only changed the way email users will enjoy emailing and the look and feel of their interface but also many new features have been added that makes it easier and more user friendly for usage on a day to day basis. The skin of Gmail has been changed to the new look that makes it look much better than the previous classic skin that many previous users have commented that it was dull, so comes up the new revamped look.

How the new UI can be enabled for a personal Gmail account -

The steps that need to be followed are -

1. Logging in to the gmail account.

2. Clicking the gear icon.

3. Then click on the “ Try the new Gmail” link.

One can also go back to the previous UI simply by clicking on the “ Go back to classic gmail “ link.

How the new gmail UI can be enabled for a G Suite account -

The steps that need to be followed are -

1. One needs to first login to their G Suite account.

2. Then go to the G Suite admin console.

3. Then come to “ New Gmail Early Adopter” program, then select “ Allow my users access to the new Gmail UI and features”.

Key new features of Gmail’s new UI -

1. Organizing emails from your inbox -

This a new hover option that allows users to organize their unopened emails from the inbox in various ways like deleting, archiving, marking as read or unread and snoozing them. Snoozing is the new feature that Google has brought in apart from the previous options that were already there.

2.  Snoozing emails for a later time receipt -

This is a key new feature that Google has introduced which allows users to receive certain emails later on at the time and date that they want to receive the particular mail. For doing so, they first need to login to their gmail account, then hover over the unread email that you want to snooze, then click on snooze and then choose the day and time to receive the mail. Multiple email messages can be snoozed at a particular time by checking on the boxes beside the mails and then select the time and day to get the mails. To get the snoozed emails later on one needs to go to the “snoozed” tab in Gmail. Another feature of this option is that whenever one snoozes a particular email for receipt at a later time, one gets a mobile notification at that time on their mobile devices when that email is to be read as per the day and time saved by the user previously. This also adds to the flexibility of the feature.

3.  Suggested Replies and Follow-ups -

Google has improved features of gmail in a particular way where it has introduced machine learning to provide suggestions during email replies where it provides words or phrases as might be used to write a reply to a particular message depending on the text already mentioned in the message. You might also be able to see old emails at the top of your inbox to follow up and this gmail does by itself due to machine learning and AI concepts being implemented by Google to improve on the user interface of Gmail.

4.  Working offline with the new Gmail -

Working offline with Gmail was already there but now it has been made a whole lot better with the addition of new abilities that makes it just awesome to use. Now, even if you are not connected to the internet, you can still be able to write, delete or read emails using the feature. Next time whenever the internet connection is available, gmail syncs the updates and sends messages if any from the users outbox and also downloads updates from the server. However, the offline data is available only upto a limit of 30 days after which if you do not sync the data it will get lost. If one is using a gmail offline feature, it is very necessary to sync the data at regular times. Also, you will be needing Chrome version 61 to use this feature. If the Chrome version is not updated to this version then it is required to be updated to this version immediately.

In order to enable gmail offline for a personal account one needs to follow the following steps - logging in to the gmail account - from the inbox one needs to click on the gear icon - click on settings under the menu - select “offline” tab from the menu - click “ enable offline mail “ checkbox to enable the feature for the account. In order to enable gmail offline for a G Suite account, one needs to follow the following steps - Go to the google admin console - From the admin console homepage one needs to go to Apps - G Suite - Gmail - User Settings. Then one needs to select Gmail web offline. If you want that the data that users have on their offline mode account doesn’t remain so after they log out then that also can be activated so that users are not able to save data on their local devices. In such case you need to select - Force deletion of offline data on log out of Google account. Lastly, click save.

5.  Expand or Shrink your inbox view -

To make the look of the inbox easy on the eyes one can expand or shrink the view of the inbox so as to decide how many messages per screen to be seen at a time. There are three modes of display densities to be selected from like Default, Comfortable and Compact. Each one will list different number of messages per screen. If one chooses Default, one will not be able to see the preview of attachments.

6. Showing or Hiding the menu to adjust the Inbox screen -

Now in order to change the width of the inbox screen to better view the messages in the inbox, one can shrink or hide the menu part so that the subject lines also for example of the messages can easily be read in one particular screen. This makes usage far easier and comfortable for the user.

7.  Add-ons on the sidebar for better productivity -

Google has added a new sidebar across the page in the inbox which displays different add-ons from the Google marketplace to better aid productivity. These add-ons include Google Calendar, Google Keep, Google Tasks, etc. These add-ons are put in the sidebar differently for personal gmail and G suite accounts. Some add-ons are exclusively available only for the G Suite account.

8.  “Confidential Mode” to keep emails secure -

Google has introduced a new and improved feature into Gmail that allows users to add confidentiality or security into sending emails to their intended recipients. Whenever one composes a mail one can choose to make it “confidential” by clicking on the “confidential” tab at the bottom of the compose window. Then there are two options in it. You can set “ expiration time” which means that the sender can set a timeline while composing the mail that automatically self-destructs the mail both on the sender’s outbox and also on the recipient’s inbox. After that expiration time, no one will have a copy of the mail. This is the first feature. The second feature is that of “ passcode”. If the recipient is a gmail user, a passcode can be sent to them for opening the mail via an sms to their registered mobile number. For a non-gmail recipient, the same can be sent to them via an email.

A closer look at how the new Google UI looks -