
Google is about to launch a Gmail Web Redesign - kanishkdudeja
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/google-is-about-to-launch-a-gmail-web-redesign/
======
neuromantik8086
Can we just agree to throw wads of cash at Thunderbird so that we can have an
e-mail client that isn't dependent on Google's whims (both for good and for
ill)? I like some of the features of Gmail (i.e., labels), but I'd prefer that
we as a society try to move back to a more provider-agnostic internet.

~~~
awalton
Feel free to put your money wherever you want. We're not stopping you from
funding Thunderbird development.

...we're just gmail users because, however sadly, it's still the best damned
mail client on the planet. Nobody's even come close since 2004. Everyone's had
plenty of time to write a replacement - nobody has because email is a terrible
technology and it's a thankless chore to work on/with.

~~~
fredsted
I’ve always used Mail.app with almost no issues, what makes Gmails web app
superior?

~~~
awalton
1) I'm not always on a Mac. In fact, I'm most frequently _not_ on a Mac. And
even on my Mac laptop, I spend my day in Linux VMs and interact with few
pieces of Apple-native software. An email client I use _must_ be portable, and
web software is preferred since, well, nobody wants to write Linux client
software anymore (or if they do, it's just an Electron app, which at that
point I'm better off using a web version anyway).

2) Filtering and categories are still unparalleled, a decade on. Nobody's even
come close to the power of Gmail's tagging and filtering. (Seriously, if you
want to see just how bad the competition is, fire up Outlook Web Access and
try to create some, even really basic, filters. You'll commonly end up with
multiple copies of emails or broken read-state tracking, broken threading,
etc. I'm forced to use OWA at work and it's excruciating to the point where I
simply don't use their filters at all and deal with Inbox Hell by searching
alone.)

3) Searching. Gmail's search engine doesn't seem to have suffered as badly as
Google's main search has over the years, and as so it still remains incredibly
powerful for "power users" like myself. By comparison, OWA's searching feels
like something a CS student would implement in class to check a box on a
requirement list.

~~~
y_molodtsov
The first item makes your point clear. But personally I don't understand why
people would use web Gmail over something like Airmail, Spark, etc — modern
clients with advanced features and search. And you can still set up filters in
the web version if you need any additional.

~~~
baumandm
I got excited and googled the email clients you mentioned...and then learned
they are Mac/iPhone/iPad only.

And that's why I'm on Gmail.

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heavymark
Very excited for this. When "Inbox" came out I was excited for a lot of the
modern amenities but it was so dumbed down from gmail and missing a lot of
core features, that ultimately switched back to using the classic Gmail
interface, even though it hasn't received much love in a while.

Since they have a separate Inbox product, hopefully they will be able to
refresh it with all the new modern bits, without removing any of the advanced
power user functionality we have all come to love and relay on.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'm betting themes goes away, since Gmail is the only Google interface that's
unevolved enough to let users actually pick the way they want their client to
look.

RIP dark themes.

~~~
zer
In that case you can still use custom CSS / user styles.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I did this for a while to cope with some of Google+'s redesigns, and came to
realize that you end up in a constant battle of dealing with your custom CSS
being broken by updates and changes to the website, and that you are better
off just suffering through what a given website wants you to use, if you're
going to use it at all.

------
zaksoup
We use G Suite at work and I'm not a fan of the new calendar design. Material
design works nicely on a tiny phone screen but on a 32" 4k display it just
seems like there's a lot of unused space. That's probably the ridiculous size
of the panel, to some degree, but frankly, I just don't think Google's done a
great job of designing desktop user interfaces that aren't search.

For folks interested in avoiding your email provider also being an advertising
company, I switched to Fastmail* last year. They've got gmail import and full
IMAP push support (something gmail canned years ago).

I'd also love to see other hosted alternatives to gmail. I looked into rolling
my own on EC2 but decided I didn't have the expertise to do it "right"

* [https://www.fastmail.com/](https://www.fastmail.com/)

~~~
david-cako
What is fastmail's sell other than their webmail interface? Seems very
expensive to me. I pay $15 a year at mxroute for unlimited domains and users.

~~~
zaksoup
I don't ever use their webmail, to be honest. I've got native mail clients on
my devices that I connect to Fastmail with IMAP. To compare apples to apples
it seems most relevant to compare storage tiers, MXroute is 5/month for 20gb,
Fastmail's 5/month plan is 25gb (but single-user only).

I personally don't really want to deal with cPanel, too. Not because cPanel
isn't cool, but because I explicitly wanted to pay somebody to do the
management for me so I didn't have to get too in-the-weeds. I'm certain I'd
misconfigure something somewhere and I just don't want to deal with that.

EOD it seems mostly like personal preference and how much you want to tinker.
Value for both seem close to the same.

~~~
david-cako
Ah, maybe I have a pretty hot promo deal then, I've got unlimited at mxroute.

I've also read mxroute's writeup on why they use cpanel, and apparently it
just made sense to use it for user configuration, and that under the hood it's
all a very unusual setup (I don't understand enough about email to be honest).

------
rabboRubble
Sorting columns would be nice! That's about the only missed feature.

I hope they don't add more dead white space like they did when rebranding from
the old blue design to the current red.

Edit: oh god, I read on that article they want to merge Gmail and Inbox and
the white space in Inbox is freeking horrible. Why? Why do this? I had looked
at Inbox briefly and thought to myself no way. I can see 8 email in Inbox and
21 in Gmail today. One email in inbox has embedded spammy ad pictures that
absorbs 3x the normal amount of space.

[https://inbox.google.com/](https://inbox.google.com/)

~~~
rabboRubble
Further edit to the edit:

Ran across an article with better images of the redesigned GUI. First glance,
it looks good. Compact display of information, balanced interface controls,
better coloring scheme. That all said, proof will be in the pudding~

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/gmail-com-
redesign-l...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/gmail-com-redesign-
leaks-looks-pretty-incredible/#p3)

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stefan_
I'm excited to discover which current Gmail features Google will deem surplus
in this re"design". That seems to be the trend when a new look is rolled out.

~~~
neuromantik8086
I'll bust out the popcorn when threads like this [1] start popping up and
people complain until Google locks down posting.

[1]
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/xd-5...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/xd-5-vDxUNY)

~~~
kuschku
I never knew that feature existed, and now I wish I'd have used it :/

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anurag
I'm looking forward to the redesign, but if you're a power user and want
vim/emacs-like productivity in email, it's going to be very hard for Gmail to
beat Superhuman ([https://superhuman.com](https://superhuman.com)). Ping me if
you'd like to get bumped to the top of the access queue. Email in profile. Not
affiliated with them; just a happy user.

~~~
kps
That page somehow neglects to say what the product _is_ (email client? web
service?) and also makes impossible claims (‘Undo Send’).

~~~
gauravvohra
We're an email client (currently web, macOS, iOS) to help you do your email
twice as fast :)

~~~
kps
Thanks, that might actually be interesting. (I fear I'll have to retire Eudora
_eventually_.)

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ajeet_dhaliwal
If this is true I wonder whether this kills Inbox. I prefer Inbox over the
Gmail interface and use it exclusively. I have an iPhone X and 5 months later,
the Inbox app has not been updated for the iPhone X screen, I think it's the
only Google app I have that hasn't been.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Since Inbox was a failed attempt at a Gmail redesign, my guess is that it will
go away if the new one doesn't send people running and screaming for the
hills.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
I think Inbox is great, why do you say it's a failed attempt? I don't think it
tried to replace Gmail, it's it's own thing.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It was intended to replace Gmail, and they halted doing so because even their
own employees revolted: [https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/16/why-did-google-
decide-to-s...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/16/why-did-google-decide-to-
split-inbox-from-gmail/)

This is probably why Gmail is nearly the last Google product that looks like
it did in the 2000s: they had to start over.

------
kanishkdudeja
Update: A Google spokesperson has provided the following statement (emphasis
included): “We’re working on some major updates to Gmail (they’re still in
<b>draft</b> phase). We need a bit more time to <b>compose</b> ourselves, so
can’t share anything yet—<b>archive</b> this for now, and we’ll let you know
when it’s time to hit <b>send</b>.”

As quoted on: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/google-is-about-to-
launch-...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/google-is-about-to-launch-a-
gmail-web-redesign/)

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jbigelow76
The first three items in your inbox will now be "Sponsored Email Placements",
with organic email showing up underneath.

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oftenwrong
I wonder if they will keep the "Basic HTML" view.

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seba_dos1
Just when I needed just a slight push to finally migrate away from Gmail to
own mail server. Thanks Google! :)

On a brighter side, basic HTML version still works very well in Gmail,
hopefully that won't be broken with the redesign.

------
janitor61
I really hope they don't get rid of the option to turn conversation view off.
For me, conversation view adds in a lot of clutter that makes it difficult to
see the message, plus lots of inline and collapsed-by-default content.

I'd really like the ability to see what emails I've replied to (with
conversation mode off), but pessimistically I'd expect we're getting mostly
unneeded aesthetic changes and functionality regressions.

~~~
awakeasleep
The options around conversation view are not only staying, but they're being
built into the phone apps as well.

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rakibtg
I wonder what Inbox would do? I have been using Inbox though it is not doing
great! Sometimes i need to switch to the Gmail in order to get things done.

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bhandziuk
For me the only thing that needs to be fixed is that when my mouse ever so
briefly glances over a contact in the Hangouts pane as the cursor traverses to
the other monitor, that contact's card pops up and stays up indefinitely,
looking at me. If it could never do that I'd be happy.

Otherwise the gmail interface doesn't really need any improvement. It's email.
there's not much special about it.

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jolesf
Very interested in this. I use inbox for personal emails but find it lacking
in many areas- most of all is lag and slow response.

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youseecomrade
Let me guess, it will follow the Google tradition of making it painfully slow
or resource intensive to use on Firefox.

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jiveturkey
oh god please no.

anyway airmail (app) is decent so maybe time to go back to a local client.

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proxygeek
I wonder if this also has something to do with their planned support for AMP
in Gmail. If yes, then this might get tricky ...

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Gmail already does dynamic content over email in the case of a first party
service: Google+. It's unlikely a design refresh has anything to do with
Google's intention to proprietarize email.

------
itakedrugs
hopefully not as bad as the last one... reverting back would be an upgrade...

Maybe this time they will decide to hide the TO field?

------
berg01
Prepare yourselves for _even more_ whitespace and _even larger_ typefaces.
It's the Material Design Way.

(Let's not forget the current Gmail had a big design update that added lots of
whitespace a few years ago.)

That update from a reader who witnessed a Googler dogfooding the new UI was
interesting:

'“It was a hybrid of Gmail and Inbox,” he told me. “The left-side column was
more like inbox.google.com and the right side was an _enlarged version_ of
Gmail.'

Let's just hope they don't repeat the Google News redesign; forcing the
content column to be fixed width. I'm looking at the new Material Design
Google News right on a 40" 4k screen, the column with actual news items is
like 30% of the width of the screen:

[https://imgur.com/a/EQY8Q](https://imgur.com/a/EQY8Q)

Edit: Eeek. I just tried inbox.google.com. It behaves pretty much like the new
Google News in terms of layout. I think this is what we can expect.

~~~
colemannugent
Yeah, my biggest fear is that they will take away the "compact" display
settings in favor of something more design'y.

The first thing I do on any new phone is make the text size as small as
possible so I don't have to scroll so damn much.

~~~
cptskippy
These redesigns always scare me because the come with a loss of functionality

I distinctly remember when Google Maps underwent Material Redesign. I traveled
around Scotland for over a week pre materialization and Google Maps was a
fantastic tool for navigation. Post materialization I went on a trip to
Ireland and it was a train wreck.

The scale was gone so your navigator was unable to give you helpful
instructions like "the next turn is in 300 yards". Eventually they added it
back, first only when zooming and later with an option to make it persist
always.

The old Google Maps had inertial compensation so if you lost a GPS lock
briefly it would continue to update your travel along a route using your last
recorded speed. This was useful when driving in the mountains or city. Now if
you momentarily lose your GPS lock it just freezes your position on the route
until it reacquires a lock. It's incredibly frustrating because there's no
indicator so you have no idea when glancing at the screen driving down the
street. I can't tell you how many turns I've missed because of this.

The old Google Maps had some rejection logic so if you were following a route
and GPS reported your position radically different from the last update it
would be ignored. Now if you're driving through areas with sketchy GPS you
jump around and Maps is constantly calculating a new route.

They removed elevation data which complicates trip planning. It's not so much
a problem with driving, though it can be. For hiking though it's a pain
because you can't see how difficult the terrain is going to be.

~~~
pc2g4d
Has anyone else noticed that Google Maps no longer says street names? It used
to say "Turn left on Drury Lane". Now it says "Turn left in 1000 feet", and I
have no idea if I'm turning onto the correct road or not.

On Android, anyway.

~~~
flukus
It's frustrating when using it as a map these day, you have to zoom right in
for the street names to be visible, even highways a lot of the time. By the
time I zoom in to see a street and zoom back out I've lost context of where
I'm looking.

Open street map is a bit better in this regard.

------
jacksmith21006
Why? Pretty use to how Gmail is today and not really looking for a new
redesign and learning the new way.

~~~
kawfey
Pretty sure there will be a "switch back to the old Gmail" mode, because
you're not the only one.

~~~
butz
For a month or two. Then, one day, you'll open it up, see new design and
"switch back" option is gone.

