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Do you remember the post about the updated Gmail chat logs? The new interface is only displayed for Google Hangouts conversations, while the old interface is still used for Google Talk/Chat conversations.

The updated interface no longer treats chat logs like regular Gmail messages, so many features like reply, forward, label, "move to inbox" are gone. You can no longer disable chat history from Gmail's settings, but you can click "delete Hangout history" to "permanently delete all messages" in a Hangout.

Google Hangouts logs are loaded dynamically, as you can see in this screenshot. This suggests that the logs aren't really stored like standard Gmail messages.


I clicked the "print" icon next to one of my Hangouts and I was surprised to notice that the print preview page only included a few messages, not the entire conversation.

In fact, Google Hangouts logs are only displayed in the regular desktop Gmail interface. They're nowhere to be found in the "basic HTML" interface or in the mobile Gmail sites/apps, not even when you use the search feature.

I disabled the conversation view in Gmail's settings to see how this affects Hangouts logs. Each reply was displayed in its own separate message, so a Hangout generated tens of message. Google Hangouts logs are unusable if you disable conservation view.

A very basic feature that worked well ever since Google Talk was launched is now broken: buggy, more limited and less useful.

{ Thanks, Katty. }

As previously anticipated, Google's 25GB plan will no longer be available for new users. It was the most affordable storage plan: $2.49/month. Now the cheapest plan offers 100GB for $4.99/month, but it's shared storage that can be used in Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

OLD:


NEW:


"Store up to 15GB in Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos, and then pay for additional storage as your account grows," informs Google. Paid storage no longer increases Gmail's storage limit to 25GB, but now the entire storage is shared between Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

You can still find the old plans here, so I suggest to choose the 25GB plan if you need more storage because it will be removed soon. You'll also get some additional Gmail storage.

Existing users will keep the old plans. "If your account lapses, your credit card is declined, or you choose to change your storage plan in any way (upgrade or downgrade), you'll be asked to choose from among the new Google Drive storage plans. Once you choose a new plan, you'll no longer be able to switch back to the old one." I still have the plan that offered 20GB of storage for only $5/year.


{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Some of you have already seen this screen in Gmail, which shows that the new inbox tabs have been enabled for your account. If not, click the gears button and see if you can find "Configure inbox". Click this menu item and you can use the new feature. If you can't find "Configure inbox", check back later.


There are 5 tabs:

- social messages from sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Google+

- promotions: newsletters, offers and other bulk messages

- updates: confirmations, bills, receipts

- forums: messages from online groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists (hidden by default)

- primary: shows all the other messages


It's important to keep in mind that the tabs only show the messages from your inbox. If you have filters that automatically archive messages, you'll not see them in the new tabs.

If you've used the SmartLabels feature from Gmail Labs, you can delete the associated labels and filters after disabling the feature. Filters look like this: Matches: label:social-updates Do this: Skip Inbox. SmartLabels had the following names: social updates, promotions, notifications, forums. Inbox tabs replace the SmartLabels feature: instead of archiving messages, you can keep them in your inbox, but in separate tabs.

Here are some tips that should help you use the new feature:

Inbox tips

1. Click the "+" button to hide or show tabs. You can hide all the tabs except Primary to go back to the old inbox. This doesn't disable categorization, so you can use all the tips from the Categories section (starting from #6).



2. Starred messages are added to the Primary tab, but you can disable this option by clicking the "+" button and unchecking "include starred in Primary".

3. Drag inbox messages to a different category or right-click and select "move to tab".

4. Tabs show the number of unread messages and a list of senders. The inbox unread count only shows the number of unread messages from the Primary tab.

5. Keyboard shortcuts:
` Go to the next inbox tab
~ Go to previous inbox tab

Categories tips

6. There's a new Categories list in the sidebar that lets you find all your notifications, promotions, social updates, not just the messages from your inbox. The list is still displayed if you hide some inbox tabs, but you can collapse it. Click "Categories" to see the messages from all the categories.


7. Search for category:updates, category:social, category:forums, category:promotions to find these messages.

8. You can create filters that use these categories. For example, create a filter that forwards all forum-related messages to a different address.

9. Create filters that exclude messages from these categories by enabling "Exclude from SmartLabel categorization" in the filter editing dialog.

10. Help Gmail categorize messages by creating filters and selecting "categorize as". For example, send all messages that include "unsubscribe" to the Promotions category.


11. You can also drag messages to the sidebar categories and use feature like "move to" or "labels" to categorize messages. The list of categories is displayed below your labels.

Gmail had a cool Labs feature that allowed you to read messages without opening them. Message Sneak Peek displayed the first sentences from a message when you right-clicked it. You could use keyboard shortcuts to navigate to the previous or to the next message, so this was a great to quickly read messages.


Here's a screenshot from 2010, when this feature was launched:


The Labs experiment is no longer available and now Gmail has a contextual menu that shows features like "move to inbox", "archive", "delete", "mark as read/unread", "move to tab" (for inbox messages). You can select multiple messages, right click and use one of the features that were also included in the Gmail toolbar.


If you're missing Sneak Peek, try Preview Pane, another Labs experiment that lets you read messages in a vertical/horizontal pane like in Outlook or Gmail for tablets.


Don't forget that "Gmail Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that aren't quite ready for primetime. They may change, break or disappear at any time."

{ Thanks, jp (banana). }

Gmail has a new favicon that looks like the icon used by Gmail's Chrome app. It's also close to the iOS app's icon.

In this screenshot, the first tab shows new the new favicon, while the second one shows the old favicon. There's also a bigger version of the new favicon.


A similar screenshot for Internet Explorer:


Here's the same icon in Chrome's new tab page. The Gmail app for Chrome is installed by default.


If you don't see the new favicon, reload Gmail using F5 or Ctrl+F5. If you don't like the new icon, you can go back the old one by enabling "Unread message icon" in Gmail Labs. This feature only works in Chrome, Firefox and Opera and it lets you see "how many unread messages are in your inbox with a quick glance at the tab's icon".

Gmail has a lot of cool features that let you organize mail, but not many people use them. Creating filters is complicated and manually labelling messages is time consuming. That's why Google added features that automatically classify messages: Priority Inbox finds important messages, Smart Labels categorizes messages and lets you find notifications, bulk messages or automatically archive them. Gmail also has different inbox styles that prioritize important messages, starred or unread messages.

Now Gmail's inbox started to include a few tabs powered by Smart Labels, a feature from Gmail Labs. "On the desktop, the new inbox groups your mail into categories which appear as different tabs. (...) Your inbox is organized in a way that lets you see what's new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when. You can easily customize the new inbox - select the tabs you want from all five to none, drag-and-drop to move messages between tabs, set certain senders to always appear in a particular tab and star messages so that they also appear in the Primary tab."


There are tabs for social updates from sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Google+, promotions (newsletters, offers and other bulk messages), notifications/updates (confirmations, bills, receipts), forum messages (online groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists) and a primary tab that shows all the other messages. This way, you can focus on important messages and read everything else later. The Smart Labels feature also has a checkbox that allows you to automatically archive messages, so that notifications, newsletters and social updates skip the inbox.


A similar feature will be added to the mobile Gmail apps for iOS and Android.


The nice thing is that inbox tabs are customizable, so you can hide some of them or even all of them.


The new feature will roll out in the coming weeks, but the updated mobile apps should be available sooner. Until then, try Smart Labels.

{ via Gmail Blog. Thanks, Mike. }

Gmail shows this message when you mark as spam a mail from your contacts: "Did your contact actually write this message? You marked this message as spam, but the sender is in your contact list. If this message seems suspicious, let us know then tell your contact that their email account might have been compromised and used to send fraudulent messages."


As you probably know, adding someone to your contacts is the best way to make sure that the messages aren't flagged as spam. When you mark a message as spam, it's likely that the following messages sent from the same address will be flagged as spam by Gmail. So there's a conflict and Google tries to fix it by assuming that the email account has been compromised.

"Normally, we'd expect that you would want to get messages from people on your Gmail contact list. So when you mark one as spam, we'd like to understand why. [When you] click 'Message looks suspicious' within the alert, the message will be marked as 'sent from a compromised account,' and you'll send a report to the Gmail team to help us improve our detection of compromised accounts. Your contact's account will not be penalized and you'll continue to receive messages from this account in the future."

Unfortunately for Gmail, the mail that triggered this alert wasn't sent by one of my contacts, so this feature doesn't work well.

Here's a way to find your receipt messages from Gmail: search for label:^smartlabel_receipt. This feature is powered by the Smart Label experiment from Gmail Labs, but you don't need to enable that experiment.


I've found receipts from PayPal, Google Play and Google Checkout, order confirmations from eBay, Amazon and other shopping sites. Gmail automatically detects receipts, just like it finds notifications, social updates, forum messages and other categories of messages.

The Smart Label feature from Gmail Labs creates filters that automatically label messages and convert system labels like ^smartlabel_receipt to user labels like Receipts. You can manually do that for receipts: click the arrow from the search box, type label:^smartlabel_receipt in the "has the words" field, click "create filter with this search", click "OK" and ignore the warning, select "Apply the label" and then "new label", create a label called "Receipts", check "Also apply filter to * matching conversations" and click "Create filter". You'll get a receipts label:

Wouldn't it be nice to deal with an email message without having to read it? Sure, you can read the subject line and archive the message, delete it or flag it as spam, but what happens when you receive notifications for online orders, flights, hotel reservations, reviews?

Gmail introduced quick action buttons that are placed next to the subject line in a list of messages. "These buttons appear next to certain types of messages in your inbox and let you take action on an email without ever having to open it. For example, you can RSVP to your friend's party invitation or rate that restaurant you went to last night all right from the inbox. You'll be checking things off that to-do list in no time."



For flight notifications, Gmail has a special card displayed above the message that includes real-time information about the flight and a "check-in" button.


Google detects the type of message and tries to extract the most important action, but you can help Google by adding schema.org markup to the mail you're sending. Right now, Gmail support 4 quick actions (invitations, reviews, one-click actions and links to other pages) and one interactive card (flights). Now that Google includes Gmail results in Google search (Field Trial) and uses Gmail data to show Google Now notifications, the structured markup is even more useful.

Gmail actions "will roll out over the next few weeks" and I'm sure this will be a very useful addition to Google Apps for Business. What kind of quick actions and interactive cards would you like to see?

Until now, Gmail offered 10GB of free storage and Google Drive/Google+ Photos only 5GB of free storage. Offering more storage for email than for storing files doesn't make a lot of sense. That's probably the reason why Google decided to share the storage for Gmail and Google Drive, so that you have a single free storage limit: 15 GB. Google Apps for Business/Education offers 30GB of free storage.

"With this new combined storage space, you won't have to worry about how much you're storing and where. For example, maybe you're a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2 GB in Gmail. Now it doesn't matter, because you can use your storage the way you want," explains Google.

There's also a new interface for the Google Storage page:


But what if you've purchased additional Drive storage? That storage is now shared between Google Drive, Google+ Photos and Gmail, but it's not clear what happens to the bonus Gmail storage. Google says "you're no longer limited to a 25 GB upgrade in Gmail — any additional storage you purchase now applies there, too". Does this mean there's no longer extra Gmail storage when you buy Drive storage?

Apparently, Google dropped the 25GB upgrade option for $2.49/month and "plans start at $4.99/month for 100 GB". If you still see the old Google Storage page and you intend to use this option, upgrade now.

And here's an idea: why not store all Gmail attachments in Google Drive and offer free storage for Gmail messages (text-only)?

{ Thanks, Herin. }

Google tests a new interface for the chat logs saved in Gmail. The new interface shows profile images and hides the regular buttons and menus that are displayed for almost all messages and conversations. For some reason, Google removed buttons like "move to inbox", "delete", "labels", the "more" drop-down, the "reply" button and the associated menu. Timestamps are only displayed when you mouse over a chat line.


There's a new "resume chat" button and a "delete messages history" button that triggers this warning: "Deleting the history will permanently delete all messages in this chat conversation. The messages will not go to the Trash. You will still receive messages that are sent after this action."


I don't see this new interface in my Gmail account, but maybe you have more luck. You can find Gmail's chat history here: https://mail.google.com/mail/#chats. The interface should only look different for recent conversations, so you can still see the old UI for the other chat conversations.

{ Thanks, Igor Marques. }

Here's a simple way to find when you've created your Gmail account. You can always find the oldest message from your account by visiting this page https://mail.google.com/mail/#all/p1000000: you'll get an error message and Gmail will redirect to a page that shows the oldest messages from your account. The problem is that this is not a reliable way to determine when the account was created: maybe you've deleted some messages, maybe you've imported messages from other accounts.

If you've joined Google+, you can quickly find the exact date. Go to Google Takeout, click "Transfer your Google+ connections to another account" (don't worry, you don't have to do that), enter your password and you can see the date when you've created your Gmail account in the blue box at the bottom of the page.



Why would you need this information? For example, Google's account recovery form includes a question about this. "If you find yourself locked out of your account and none of your other recovery options work, your last option is to visit our password-assistance page and fill out our Account Recovery form. (...) Since Google doesn't collect a lot of information about you when you sign up for an account, we'll ask you questions like when you created your account, what Google services you use, and who you email frequently (if you use Gmail)."

I haven't tested this, but I assume this trick also works for non-Gmail Google accounts.

{ via TechAirlines }

The latest version of the Gmail app for iOS added a feature that opens links using other Google apps: Chrome, Google Maps and YouTube, assuming you've already installed them. It works well for Google Maps links and YouTube links, but not that well for other links: some open using Chrome, but most links open using the internal browser of the Gmail app.


If you don't like this feature, you can disable it by tapping the settings icon next to the account switcher, picking Google Apps and unchecking the apps you don't want to handle Gmail links.

You can't change the default browser in iOS, but some Google apps include an option to use Chrome. For example, the YouTube app opens all the links using Chrome, if you've installed the app, and you can disable this feature from the settings. When you open a page from a Google app like YouTube, Gmail or Google+, Chrome shows a button that sends you to the previous app, just like the Android back button.

Gmail has a new login page that promotes the mobile apps for Android and iOS and shows a large picture of a Nexus 4 running the Gmail app. "Experience the ease and simplicity of Gmail, everywhere you go."

If the old login page mentioned that Gmail offers lots of storage and has a great spam filtering technology, the new page promotes video chat and phone calling. "One username is all you need to unlock more features from the Google services you use everyday."


Here's the old login page:


{ Thanks, Herin. }

One month ago, Google updated the Gmail app for iOS and added a swipe gesture that lets you move between conversations without having to return to the inbox. At that time, the mobile Gmail site didn't have this feature, but now it's available.

If you like to use Gmail in the mobile browser and you don't want to install a special app for Gmail, you can now swipe left or right to the previous or the next conversation. Unfortunately, this feature is more difficult to use in Chrome because Google's browser has a similar gesture for navigating between tabs. You should avoid swiping from the edge of the screen when you open mobile Gmail.


It's interesting to notice that the "swipe to archive" feature of the mobile Gmail site doesn't work in Chrome for Android, but it works in the stock browser, in Safari and Chrome for iOS.

As Droid Life previously reported, Google already tests Babel, an unified messaging service that combines Google Talk, Gmail Chat, Google+ Messenger. There's a Gmail page that mentions "dogfooding Babel in Gmail" and it's supposed to be available only to Google employees.


"Upgrade Chat to Babel! Babel is Google's new messenger with clients for Android, iOS, Chrome, Google+ and Gmail. Access the same conversation list from anywhere!" That's how Google describes the new service.

"Some of the new features:

* A new, conversation-based UI
* Advanced group conversations
* Send pictures
* Improved notifications across devices."

It looks like you can go back to the Gmail Chat interface: "You're about to revert the Babel chat client to the old Gmail chat client. You can always opt in back from the chat roster menu."

Here's a screenshot (it's this image):


{ Thanks, F. }

Here are some new Gmail keyboard shortcuts:

d - open a compose window in a new tab (Shift+c opens it in a new window)

, - moves the cursor to the first button in your Gmail toolbar

{ - archives the current conversation and moves to the older one

} - archives the current conversation and moves to the next one.

There are some subtle differences between [ ("Removes the current view's label from your conversation and moves to the older one") and { ("Archives the current conversation and moves to the older one") or between ] and }. Their effect is identical when you read conversations from your inbox. If you open a conversation from any other label, [ will remove that label from the conversation, while { will remove the conversation from the inbox.

The Gmail shortcuts page has been recently changed and these are the new shortcuts I've noticed.

Gmail is the only Google service that disables keyboard shortcuts by default. They're for power users and some people could accidentally trigger them, especially when you consider that most Gmail shortcuts don't use modifiers.

Google has recently added some new shortcuts that are enabled by default. The old shortcuts are still disabled by default, but you can quickly enable them by pressing ? in Gmail and clicking "Enable" next to "The following keyboard shortcuts are currently disabled".

I've already mentioned some of them, but here is the full list of shortcuts that are enabled by default (you can't disable them):

- arrow keys: you can use the up/down arrows to navigate in a list of conversations and press Enter to select one of them. Gmail automatically loads the previous/next page of conversations. Use the left arrow key and then the up/down arrow keys to move your cursor to a different label or the compose button.

- n/p: if you open a conversation with multiple messages, use the n/p keys to go to the next or previous message. Press Enter to load that message if it's collapsed.

- Ctrl+Enter: use this shortcut in the compose window to send a message.

- Shift+Esc: focus the main window.

- Esc: focus the latest chat or compose window.

- Ctrl+. or Ctrl+,: move the cursor to the next/previous chat or compose window, or to the main window.

- Ctrl+Shift+c: add CC recipients in the compose window.

- Ctrl+Shift+b: add BCC recipients in the compose window.

- Ctrl+Shift+f: change the From email address in the compose window.

- A long list of shortcuts for formatting text when you compose a message.

Ctrl+Shift+2 - insert emoticon
Ctrl+Shift+7 - numbered list
Ctrl+Shift+8 - bulleted list
Ctrl+Shift+9 - quote text
Ctrl+[ - indent less
Ctrl+] - indent more
Ctrl+Shift+l - align left
Ctrl+Shift+e - align center
Ctrl+Shift+r - align right

Some of them were already available in the old compose interface:

Ctrl+b - bold text
Ctrl+i - italic text
Ctrl+u - underline text
Ctrl+k - insert link

Obviously, Mac users should replace Ctrl with ⌘.

Many people complained about the new UI for composing messages in Gmail, others found it useful, but it's interesting to know what's the main goal of the new interface. I initially thought that Google wanted make it easier to use other Gmail features while you're composing a message, but an article from Co.Design suggests something else.

What it looks like, really, is a slightly oversized version of Gchat. And that's no accident. Google's actively trying to make email less fussy and formal--or, in other words, to make it a little more like instant messaging. And as Jason Cornwell, Gmail's lead designer, explains, one of the ways to do that is simply to 'give you permission to write shorter messages.' (...) Picture the standard full-screen compose window. The one that gives you a dauntingly huge text box to fill and an array of options for formatting whatever you manage to put in it. What that really looks like, with its button-strewn toolbar, is an empty word processor--and according to Cornwell, what it communicates to users is this: 'Write something long. It was a space that was sort of intimidating, I think, to write a message like "Hey, wanna get lunch?"' he explains. 'We wanted the new compose to facilitate these quicker messages. Or at least make it a space where that felt appropriate.

Gmail's lead designer says that "a very small percentage of emails involve a formatting action," so that's the reason why you need two clicks instead of only one click to make text bold. Once you click the "formatting options" button, the bar stays open, so you can use other features without an additional click.

Co.Design argues that Gmail now competes with SMS, instant messaging and social networks, so Google had to simplify the interface "to keep up with the times".

The old interface:


The new interface:

A recent post from Gmail's Google+ page mentioned 2 new Gmail search features: enhanced contact suggestions with thumbnails and suggestions from your Gmail search history.

"If you've searched your email for 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' or other lengthy phrases, it just got easier to find what you're looking for. Autocomplete predictions in Gmail may now include your past Gmail searches. Past searches as well as the new contact thumbnails shown below are rolling out to all Gmail users globally, including Google Apps for Business customers, over the next few days."


Are contact thumbnails in Gmail search a new feature? Not if you've previously joined the Gmail Field Trail, which adds many other cool features that integrate Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive and Google Search.