Official Gmail Blog
News, tips and tricks from Google's Gmail team and friends.
Save time with smart scheduling in Google Calendar
September 29, 2016
Posted by
Federico Asara, Software Engineer
Some topics are best discussed in face-to-face meetings, but setting them up takes too much time. Whether you’re coordinating across time zones, hunting for a room, or just trying to find a time that works for more than a couple of people — it really adds up.
If you’re using
G Suite
, “Find a time” already lets you set up meetings much faster in
Calendar on Android
. Today it’s coming to iOS and by the end of the year, the web. We’re also adding smart room booking, so you can easily find a place to meet as well.
Powered by Google’s machine intelligence, “Find a time” suggests meeting times and available rooms based on your preferences, which saves you lots of time and gets everyone together faster. Time and room suggestions are smart, too: They don’t just identify the first free slot in a grid, they also locate the next best slots as a back-up. For example, when Calendar doesn’t find availability for your preferred time, it then looks for conflicts across the group that are easier to resolve, such as recurring 1:1 meetings. And although “Find a time” makes smart suggestions, you're always in control — just tap the grid to pick a time that's a better fit.
Start saving time for the important things by downloading Google Calendar for
Android
or
iOS
(and look out for this update on the
web
soon).
Better emails, tailored to all your devices
September 14, 2016
Posted by Pierce Vollucci, Product Manager
Have you ever opened an email on your phone and something about the formatting just looks … off? Maybe the text is hard to read, or the buttons and links too small to tap. That’s because many emails are still formatted for computers' larger screens, which means reading them on mobile can be a hassle.
Starting later this month, Gmail and Inbox by Gmail will support emails created with responsive design, meaning their content adapts to fit screens of all sizes. Text, links, and even buttons will enlarge to make reading and tapping easier on a smaller screen. If you’re on desktop, you’ll also see improvements, since emails designed for mobile can also adapt to fit larger screens.
Example of an email before and after responsive design
These changes will make your email experience as comfortable and intuitive as possible. And as responsive design becomes more common, you’ll continue to see emails that fit better on all your screens and devices.
P.S. Are you an email designer? Check out our
post on the Google Apps Developer Blog
for all the crunchy details on what this update means for you.
Inbox by Gmail: Evolving the inbox to save you time
August 9, 2016
Posted by Thijs van As, Product Manager
Staying on top of your to-do list can be a challenge. In order to get things done, you often need to hunt through your inbox to find what you’re looking for, whether it’s info about upcoming events, your next trip, or a news article you want to share with colleagues.
The team behind Inbox has made its mission to help you organize your email and save you time. Starting today, you'll discover more integrations that make it easier to see what's happening and then act with organized Trello and GitHub project updates and Google Alerts previews. You'll also see updates based on your feedback, including Google Drive integration.
Get organized Trello and GitHub project updates
The Inbox team has worked with
Trello
, a project management application, and
GitHub
, a software collaboration platform, to improve email notifications. If you use Trello, you'll get a summary of what's new with your Trello projects, so you can stay up-to-date on the latest updates. And for those of you who use GitHub, you’ll get a summary of code changes and filed issues for each repository.
Stay on top of your Google Alerts
To help you stay in the know on topics you care about, you can scan through your Google Alerts just like a newsletter. New alerts are summarized right in the inbox. If one of them catches your eye, you can click to read more. If not, you can quickly mark it as done.
Enjoy other updates based on your feedback
You'll also see a number of highly-requested features based on your feedback (thank you!):
If you use Google Drive, you can now insert Drive links into emails, check and fix permissions for those links, and save email attachments to Drive.
You can now drag-and-drop contacts between to, cc, and bcc in compose on web.
You can delete right from the inbox just as easily as you can mark as done.
What’s next?
If you're a company that sends emails, and are excited about our Trello and GitHub updates and want to make your emails more useful, contact us
here
-- we are excited to work with more email senders directly over the coming months.
This is just the beginning: The Gmail team will continue to improve the email experience so you can spend less time dealing with email and more time being productive.
Google Calendar for Android: Find a time for my meeting
April 27, 2016
Posted by Stella Schieffer, Product Manager
Smartphones have made productivity portable. You no longer have to be at your desk to catch up on meeting notes, dial into a conference call, or send an email. But scheduling meetings on the go is still difficult, as you have to open your laptop to check everyone’s calendar and find a time that works.
Starting today, if you use Google Apps for Work or Edu, you can schedule meetings from anywhere with "Find a time" in Google Calendar for Android.
With a single tap, “Find a time” helps you find meeting times that work for everyone—even if they're in different time zones—based on their availability and the times they usually have meetings. If there are no times that work, Calendar will look at which conflicting meetings can most easily be rescheduled. Designed specifically for organizations where sharing your calendar with colleagues is the norm, here's how it works:
“Find a time” makes suggestions, but you're still in control. You can tap to see everyone's schedule at a glance—perfect for making sure the timing works for all. And if you manage someone else's calendar, you can use the feature to schedule meetings on their behalf as well.
Download
Google Calendar for Android
to get easy, on-the-go scheduling. And yes, we're also working on bringing “Find a time” to iPhone, as well as easier ways to schedule on the web.
Inbox by Gmail: a better way to keep track of events, newsletters and links
April 20, 2016
Posted by Pras Sarkar, Software Engineer
Life can get really busy. Inboxes too. Just think about everything inside your own inbox, from personal messages and
trip itineraries
to promotional offers and yes, even bills. It's all (mostly) important, but it can be overwhelming to stay on top of everything. And sometimes, you might miss something really important amidst all the rest.
Starting today, you'll discover three new experiences in Inbox—streamlined events, glanceable newsletters and saved links—that help you better keep track of things that matter to you and feel more in control.
Keep up with Google Calendar events
Events can be hard to keep track of in your inbox because details—and people’s plans—may change. Inbox now gathers emails from a single event together and shows you what's changed at a glance. When you tap on an event, you'll see a comprehensive overview, all in one place.
Stay on top of your favorite email newsletters
Similarly, it’s now easier to preview the newsletters you read often and click through to the articles that interest you most. And once you've taken a look at the latest, newsletters will minimize to save space in the inbox.
Store links to remember with "Save to Inbox"
Lastly, your inbox is much more than just the emails sent to you. Chances are you've emailed yourself a link or two (or three)—to an article you want to read later or a recipe you want to try. Now instead of sending yourself a bunch of separate emails, try the new "Save to Inbox" feature to easily save links for later.
Simply share the link to Inbox on Android or iOS, or use the new
Inbox by Gmail Chrome extension on web
. When you check your email, you'll see your saved links grouped together in one place.
With these updates, Inbox helps you organize and access the information that matters most, saving time and reducing email overload. Take these new features for a spin by sharing to Inbox on mobile,
installing the Chrome extension
, subscribing to an email newsletter or scheduling an event.
Find time for your goals with Google Calendar
April 12, 2016
Posted by Jyoti Ramnath, Product Manager
Whether it’s reading more books, learning a new language or working out regularly, achieving your goals can be really hard. One day it's "I got called into a last-minute meeting." The next day it's "I have a friend in town." And before you know it, your goals are delayed or forgotten. In fact, with all the things you need to do in a given week, it’s probably harder than ever to find the time—even when your goal really matters to you.
That’s why starting today, we’re introducing Goals in Google Calendar. Just add a personal goal—like “run 3 times a week”—and Calendar will help you find the time and stick to it.
Goals are easy to set up
To set a goal (like “Work out more”), simply answer a few questions (like “How often?” and “Best time?”), and you’re all set. From there Calendar will look at your schedule and find the best windows to pencil in time for that goal.
Goals adjust to your busy life
Goals aren't easy—especially when the unexpected comes up—but Calendar can help you adjust in a number of important ways. For example, Calendar will automatically reschedule if you add another event that's a direct conflict with a goal.
You can also defer a goal at any time, and Calendar will make time for it later.
Finally, Calendar actually gets better at scheduling the more you use it—just defer, edit or complete your goals like normal, and Calendar will choose even better times in the future.
Calendars should help you make the most of your time—not just be tools to track events. So as Google Calendar turns 10 today (🎉), we're excited to invest in more updates like Goals, and to help you find time for everything that matters—from your daily
must-dos
, to exercising more, to just a little "me time."
To get started, download the Google Calendar app for
Android
or
iPhone
, and set your first goal.
Reminders come to Google Calendar on the web
April 5, 2016
Posted by Erick Johnson, Software Engineer
Starting this week, we’re bringing
Reminders in Google Calendar
to the
web
so you can keep track of your to-dos alongside your events.
Just like on Android and iPhone, you’ll get the following:
Reminders stick around
- If a reminder isn't completed, it will appear at the top of your calendar until you mark it done.
Reminders work across Google
- Reminders you create in Inbox, Keep, and the Google app will also show in Google Calendar.
Reminders sync with mobile
- Reminders created in mobile show up on the web and vice versa. So you can stay on track from just about anywhere.
With Reminders alongside your events on the web, Android and iPhone, you now have a single way to manage your day.
Introducing Gmail Mic Drop
March 31, 2016
Posted by Victor-bogdan Anchidin, Software Engineer
UPDATE April 1 2pm:
We heard feedback that some of you were negatively impacted by this feature, so we quickly turned it off late last night. In addition, we are working to bring back Mic-Dropped messages that had subsequent replies to your inbox, so you can read those.
We realize many of you use Gmail for very important messages, and we are sorry if Mic Drop was in any way harmful to you. Note that if you’re a Google Apps business, education or government user this feature was never turned on.
At Google we have a culture of sharing what we learned when things go wrong, and we want to share these learnings with you:
We should have asked you before turning on the feature, and it should have included a confirmation before sending.
We didn't anticipate accidental clicks: "Send + Mic Drop" was too close to other send buttons ("Send" as well as "Send & Archive"), which caused confusion.
And yes there was a bug. It was rare, but possible to press the regular "Send" button and still Mic Drop if you did the following:
Opened a new compose window
Pressed the “Send & Mic Drop” button with no recipients and saw error message
Edited the message by adding message recipient(s)
Pressed the regular send button.
Again, sorry. We love April Fools jokes at Google, and we regret that this joke missed the mark and disappointed you.
UPDATE
April 1 1am:
Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year.
😟
Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.
Email's great, but sometimes you just wanna hit the eject button. Like those heated threads at work, when everyone's wrong except you (obviously). Or those times when someone's seeking group approval, but your opinion is the only one that matters (amirite?). Or maybe you just nailed it, and there's nothing more to say (bam).
Today, Gmail is making it easier to have the last word on any email with Mic Drop. Simply reply to any email using the new 'Send + Mic Drop' button. Everyone will get your message, but that's the last you'll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won't see it.
When you drop the mic, your email will also include an explanatory image--just to help set expectations.
Friends and family have been testing Gmail Mic Drop for months, and the response so far has been awesome:
"Sending email is so much easier when you don't have to worry about people responding!"
"Mic Drop is a huge improvement over Mute! I can finally let everyone know I'm just not interested."
"My team solves problems so much faster with Mic Drop. In fact, we stopped talking to each other entirely!"
Gmail Mic Drop is launching first on the web, but mobile updates are on the way. So stay tuned, and stay saucy.
Express yo'self with emoji in Smart Reply
March 31, 2016
Posted by Balint Miklos, Software Engineer
When someone emails you asking to schedule a meeting, there's a good chance you're thinking, "Aw 💩 ." Or, when you get that 17th update on that topic you stopped caring about 10 emails ago, you just wanna say 💤 . Or maybe your friend just emailed you photos from Vegas, and you get inspired to stand up and 👏 . Whatever you want to say, emoji can say it better (obvs). So we figured we'd take the deep neural network behind Smart Reply, and make it more sassy.
The result is emoji suggestions in addition to (or instead of) really boring text replies. In our testing, we've also found that emoji do a better job of plumbing the emotional depths of one's soul, so we're optimistic that today's update will encourage more open and honest email conversations.
Looking ahead, Smart Reply will actually get better the more you use it, so you'll be able to strike just the right balance between written responses, and 😍 😱 🛀 🎉.
PS: Smart Reply is only suggesting emoji. We are investigating. Pardon our dust.
PPS: We are happy to report that our deep neural network had quickly learned that when given a choice, you, our users, always pick emoji. Smart Reply adapted so quickly that we thought it was a bug. Thankfully, Smart Reply will continue to show the three most perfect replies, which happen to always be emoji.
PPPS: 🚀🐍🎉🐱🍕💯
Smart Reply comes to Inbox by Gmail on the web
March 15, 2016
Posted by Taylor Kourim, Software Engineer
Today, we're bringing
Smart Reply
to
Inbox on the web
.
Just like in the Inbox mobile app, Smart Reply saves you precious time by suggesting up to three responses based on the emails you get. Selecting an option starts a reply, ready for you to either edit or send:
10% of all your replies
on mobile already use Smart Reply, so we’re excited to bring this same convenience to the web. It's particularly helpful when you're jamming through lots of emails on your laptop.
Keep the feedback coming using the "Help & Feedback" link in the app.
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