17 ms·

Gmail Launches Add-ons

416 points by alooPotato 9y ago

vit05 9y ago
This link does not open here https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/do-more-your-inbox-gmail-add-ons/ https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/do-more-your-inbox-... http://blog.google.com/ http://blog.google.com/ Doesn't open too But https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com opens and google.com opens. I have tested on my smartphone and didn't work. I am from Brasil, so, I do not think is some kind of restriction. Anyone have any idea what's going on?
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Hey, I'm the Tech Lead of the team that runs .google. Can you provide more information? What browser are you using? Can you use some tool like https://ipleak.net/ https://ipleak.net/ to determine what DNS servers you're hitting? And can you try some of these other domain names on other TLDs and report back? https://nomulus.foo https://nomulus.foo https://nic.dev https://nic.dev https://pki.goog/ https://pki.goog/
  - vit05 9y ago
    Hi, thanks. None of those 3 sites open here. What kind of information do you need from ipleak.net? DNS Address - 1 server 45.62.204.178 Canada Canada
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      What browser are you using? It does seem like you're having DNS problems. See the following: $ dig @45.62.204.178 blog.google ; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-3ubuntu0.16-Ubuntu <<>> @45.62.204.178 blog.google ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached That same command run against other DNS servers (for example, our public DNS server at 8.8.8.8) succeeds. Even stranger, against your configured DNS server, requests for non-existent .google domains do work correctly, as does nic.google and sites on many of the rest of our TLDs (e.g. get.how and iam.soy). nic.dev and bar.foo do work for me but pki.goog and nomulus.foo do not. It looks to me like you're having DNS problems. Can you switch your DNS settings? Or use a VPN that does that built-in? Also, why, if you're in Brasil, are you hitting a DNS server located in Canada?
      - vit05 9y ago
        I have changed the DNS and now it is working correctly. Two days ago, a problem occurred with the modem and they changed the device. All settings were on automatic. But I really can not understand why blog.google did not work right away, and why it was routed to a canada DNS. I am using Google Chrome and Firefox. Tks for take the time to help. The internet provider that I am using is called netcombo.com.br and in the past, they have blocked the use of others DNS and some services. I do not know if that is the case now. I have asked for others using the same internet provider to test and will update when they done. Edit. So, others using the same provider reporter that https://www.blog.google https://www.blog.google do not open there.
        CydeWeys 9y ago
        Thanks for your debugging help. I'm working to see what the next step might be to contact people at that ISP and tell them that they're messing something up. You could also tell them via their tech support that they're misrouting requests for certain TLDs.
czardoz 9y ago
Does this work with Inbox too?
- alooPotato 9y ago
  it currently does not
chmars 9y ago
I hope that the 'Quick Links' function from the Gmail Labs will return as an add-on! On the other, it makes me sad that for my business mail, I am stuck with Apple Mail. I miss therefore many important Gmail features, including security-related features. And Apple Mail has still no reliable support for Gmail drafts …
- rrggrr 9y ago
  This. The disappearance of quick links killed my productivity. Super frustrating.
alooPotato 9y ago
We (Streak yc s11) were a launch partner on this and launched our Add-on today. Even though we already have a chrome extension for desktop, add-ons allowed us to live inside the native Gmail mobile apps. Happy to answer any questions about the add-on platform....
- mottomotto 9y ago
  What were you using before? InboxSDK or something similar that Streak developed? Have you had any issues with limitations in the official add-on API?
  - alooPotato 9y ago
    See my other comment on InboxSDK but summary, yes we are using InboxSDK because we made it and because we still want the power it offers on desktop. On mobile we use Add-ons plus a native app that can be deep linked to from the Add-on. EDIT: if you look at the docs of the www.inboxsdk.com/docs there is a lot of functionality above and beyond the sidebar API that add-ons offers.
    - alooPotato 9y ago
      As promised: https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60ac https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60a...
      - mottomotto 9y ago
        Thank you -- I had expected some differences and I do indeed use some InboxSDK features that aren't present in the official API (adding to the Compose button toolbar). That was very helpful.
- gnicholas 9y ago
  Is there any way to modify the appearance of text within emails? My startup has a popular Chrome extension that works with gmail on desktop, but we'd love to be on native gmail apps also. For context (and to understand why we need to modify the text), see http://www.beelinereader.com http://www.beelinereader.com
wubbapubba 9y ago
Gmail is consolidating their dominance with stuff like this. If things start replacing email communication, gmail will just provide it on top which moves us further and further from a standards compliant SMTP GUI that email was. I haven't found an email client that reliably renders most html, yet we have addons and soon maybe Android apps in your email.
- harigov 9y ago
  I guess Microsoft is close behind and probably leading in the number of paying customers. However, a duopoly isn't that much better either. It's unfortunate that the spirit of the internet that resulted in many open technologies is slowly being circumvented by companies seeking to monopolize. Unlike old monopolies, where breaking apart is reasonably easy, these new monopolies are entrenched right from their technology stack.
- edraferi 9y ago
  I don't think it's quite so gloomy. A lot of cool add-on functionality relies on semantic markup in the email itself [0]. These are open standards by necessity -- any email provider can add support for them. For example, here's the standard for flight reservations [1]. I'm not sure how widely adopted they are, but Microsoft supports at least event discovery [2]. [0] https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/ https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/ [1] http://schema.org/FlightReservation http://schema.org/FlightReservation [2] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Automatically-add-travel-and-package-delivery-events-to-your-calendar-32e5cf0c-3e65-4870-9ff9-df3683d3fc97 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Automatically-add-t... edit: formatting
  - duskwuff 9y ago
    Annoyingly, though, these markup features still require explicit approval from Google to function in Gmail. They aren't even usable at all for small sites, as one of Google's approval requirements is a "consistent history of sending a high volume of mail from your domain".
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
suyash 9y ago
Nothing new here, all this and more can be accomplished by a simple browser extension.
- frew 9y ago
  We (Streak) are based on a browser extension, but we're actually really excited about this launch since it works on the native Gmail mobile apps and it lets you install addons once and have them work across all your devices.
- kash25 9y ago
  Add-ons work across web and Android though :)
- dabockster 9y ago
  > Nothing new here, all this and more can be accomplished by a simple desktop app. FTFY
Numberwang 9y ago
Add Trello card may be something I'd use for sure.
falcolas 9y ago
Not much info in this particular message, but I wonder if this could be used with GPG to send and receive encrypted emails. I'm sure browser sandboxing would be an issue (hard to keep a key private when it's uploaded to another server and used in a browser window)... but still, the possibility would be pretty awesome.
- comboy 9y ago
  There are extensions that do that well already. But the problem is still that I don't trust the browser with my private key. I wonder though how reasonable my assumption is. E.g. how many security issues in the past two years could have potentially caused my key to be compromised if I were to use it that way.
- AgentME 9y ago
  The Gmail Add-ons are executed by Gmail and are within Gmail-controlled webpages. Nothing in the add-on is private from Gmail/Google. If you want end-to-end GPG-encryption where the plaintext and keys aren't accessible to Google, then you want to use a browser extension (such as Google's End-to-End extension or ones built off of it: https://github.com/google/end-to-end https://github.com/google/end-to-end).
mottomotto 9y ago
Is that notify link for general availability in the post working for anyone? I'm getting an authorization error. I've been using InboxSDK for a SaaS project add-on and I would love to go to an official API and have it work on GSuite mobile apps.
- alooPotato 9y ago
  We (Streak) are also the makers of the InboxSDK. We're planning on writing a post for how InboxSDK + Add-ons plays nicely together. Coming later today but in the meantime, tl;dr is we suggest having both if you're doing anything more than a sidebar. We (Streak) are doing both - to get more powerful API's on desktop but still having functionality on mobile.
  - alooPotato 9y ago
    As promised: https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60ac https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60a...
tyingq 9y ago
I wonder if this is just "contextual gadgets"[1] that have existed for paid gsuite/gmail for a while. If not, they should probably consolidate the two. [1]https://developers.google.com/gmail/gadgets_overview https://developers.google.com/gmail/gadgets_overview
- alooPotato 9y ago
  I think these are now effectively deprecated
- icebraining 9y ago
  In my experience, Gadgets have been languishing for a while. We developed one to integrate Gmail with our issues tracker (it created an issue from the email content), yet after we tried to deploy an update, now using the new control panel, it simply never showed up again.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
edraferi 9y ago
More information about the developer experience here: https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com/2017/10/gmail-add-ons-framework-now-available.html https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com/2017/10/gmail-add-o... Edit: Looks like you build the add-ons with Google AppsScript. Very similar to Microsoft Office + VBA, on the web this time. There's a CodeLab tutorial showing how to build a basic add-on that populates a Google Sheets file with receipt data from emails: https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/gmail-add-ons/#0 https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/gmail-add-on...
zack12 9y ago
I have been using unofficial addons for a while like Todoist and Trello and love the fact that they are making a step in the right direction. More integrations, more love. On the other hand, I really hate their blog design. The reading space is less than half the screen. https://cl.ly/0h2z471o0v2W https://cl.ly/0h2z471o0v2W
forgotmypw 9y ago
Sounds a lot like Gmail Labs, which was discontinued. I've learned to expect most Google products to be killed off, so I don't even bother starting to use them anymore.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Labs were experimental features developed by Google itself. These are stable features developed by third-parties. They both extend Gmail, but that's about it.
  - gnicholas 9y ago
    But there's still a chance that Google will discontinue the gmail addon marketplace, just like they previously killed Chrome apps: http://www.omgchrome.com/not-joke-google-killing-chrome-apps/ http://www.omgchrome.com/not-joke-google-killing-chrome-apps...
    - Fizzer 9y ago
      They also killed Hangout apps: https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/06/apps-that-rely-on-google-hangouts-wont-work-after-april-25th/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/06/apps-that-rely-on-google...
    - thrownaway954 9y ago
      Electron based apps seem to be the successor to Chrome Apps
      - tuananh 9y ago
        they are different i think. chrome apps will use shared instance with chrome if you're using it. electron apps on the other hands, are creating their own instance.
    - chiefalchemist 9y ago
      "Don't be evil (except when screwing over loyal and established customers is great for the bottomline)."
jypepin 9y ago
So, I started using inbox a while ago when it was announced and I love it. Really. What's the state of development of it? Doesn't seems to be moving much and a lot of features from gmail are still missing, and I continue to see dev happening on gmail and not on inbox. Should I be moving back to inbox?
- sushisource 9y ago
  Yeah, inbox seems vastly superior to me, with the exception that it runs like absolute shit on Firefox which I can only interpret as intentional, considering I find FF faster than Chrome for a lot of other stuff these days.
  - lkbm 9y ago
    Some JS features are faster on Chrome and some on Firefox. Additionally, while Firefox is killing it on CSS and some layout stuff with Stylo and WebRender, JS is the area where Firefox isn't dominating. It's trivial to explain the speed difference without assuming it intentional. In Inbox's case, sparse arrays were an issue initially[0] (and like many of the perf issues, it's been fixed[1].) There will always be perf trade-offs. If you find any where they chose X over Y when X and Y are equal on Chrome, and X is faster than Y on Firefox, then let's talk about anti-competitive behavior. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963
  - vmarsy 9y ago
    I specifically installed Firefox 57 so that I could try Inbox there, because as you point out, on Firefox 56 it's very slow (especially the initial load). On Firefox 57 with that new Quantum CSS, I found Inbox to be amazingly fast (I'd say even faster than Chrome on my yoga pro 2 - except for the right pane of Google Hangouts which takes a while to load still)
- bengotow 9y ago
  I think the problem is that 10% of Gmail users think Inbox is awesome and the rest think it's godawful for breaking 'feature X' they loved. Where feature X isn't one feature but a thousand tiny things. I think with Add-ons, they're trying to extend Gmail in a way that won't offend anyone married to the current UI.
pkamb 9y ago
What I've always wanted are widgets that show up in your inbox as if they're emails, but aren't actually emails. So rather than your calendar sending you an email reminder, it inserts a calendar "app" item that's opened when you click the subject of the non-email. Or a todo list that lives in your inbox, but directly opens a todo document rather links to a todo document. Would replace the never-sent draft I currently use for the same.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Not exactly the same, but with an Email Go-To Action you can add a button to the subject line that links to whatever you want: https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/actions/actions-overview#go-to_actions https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/actions/actions-o...
aNoob7000 9y ago
Are there any concerns about privacy? I mean now you have applications that will use a platform that Google is known to scan for information. I know everyone has heard this before, but I would like to see what people think. A couple of days ago, people were all up in arms about phone companies selling your website traffic. What makes Google better than god forbid AT&T or Verizon?
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  These add ons are voluntary and you have to enable them. If someone is under the illusion that Google is better at privacy than anyone else they should re-educate themselves about that .
- SquareWheel 9y ago
  Well, their privacy policy prohibits that sort of thing. It also doesn't make a lot of business sense, as Google's biggest advantage is being able to target ads based on that data.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Google says they no longer scan Gmail for advertising. I guess it depends on how much you trust them, but frankly one's emails are often pretty juicy by themselves, so if you're really worried you should probably not use it at all. I moved off it years ago.
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    Do they "no longer scan Gmail for advertising", or do they no longer scan Gmail?
    - icebraining 9y ago
      I'm sure they scan it, otherwise it'd be hard to catch spam. I don't think they ever said they scanned it for any other reason.
      - 9y ago
shoover 9y ago
Does anyone ever want to annotate threads or messages with notes like next actions or why you didn’t reply? I always thought it should be built into gmail, but I suppose an add-on would work.
- vm 9y ago
  The Inbox (by Gmail) mobile app has this. "Pin" an email and you can write whatever you want to remember to do later. It's awesome.
shadyrudy 9y ago
Any add ons to Sort by Sender?
pfarnsworth 9y ago
All I want is to be able to define a search, and have gmail separate those into a new tab, with a badge that tells me how many unread emails are there. That's all I want and my productivity would increase drastically. They almost have it with multiple inboxes, but the layout is really shitty and I have to scroll around my gmail window to see the various inboxes. Why can't they just add this as another tab? It's infuriating that such a simple and useful feature doesn't exist yet. This is why having a monoculture for things like email is a bad idea, they don't really care.
- alooPotato 9y ago
  +1
  - ents 9y ago
    Does [Gmail quick links](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmail-quick-links/ecbkcjeoffcjnppapdlncohmehhnfibd?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmail-quick-links/...) not do this?
guelo 9y ago
Gmail on Android is such a shitty locked-down experience. Want to create an appointment from an email? Nope. Want to set a reminder about an email? Nope. Want to link to an email from a notes or other app? Nope. OK, well now maybe. If you become a "business partner" with them and shove your product into whatever grand strategery they're cooking up this quarter. It's sad to think how Android was envisioned as this open system where apps freely communicate with each other but Google has been working overtime to kill that vision. Google in general just hates open these days.
- late2part 9y ago
  Just Like Java (TM)? Google is the new Sun Microsystems?
  - TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
    Except Google figured out how to monetize the success. I knew it was bad when the JRE install started asking if I wanted to install search bars in my browser.
    - chiefalchemist 9y ago
      I think, per Zero to One, Thiel (for one) would argue otherwise. Take away search (read: ads on SERPs) and Google is close to an average, if not subpar, "success story."
      - dannyw 9y ago
        Take away the iPhone and Apple is a failing computer manufacturer. Take away Windows and Microsoft is a mediocre console maker and makes Office. So?
        chiefalchemist 9y ago
        Read Zero to One. It'll explain the situation better than I can in a tiny textbox :)
dgudkov 9y ago
Is Google going to make Gmail an app platform?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Gmail is a component of GSuite, which has been an app platform for a while.
d--b 9y ago
Fast forward 2 years: Google shuts down addons
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  You think it'll last two years?
kristianov 9y ago
Is Inbox another abandoned Google product?
- 6nf 9y ago
  I really like Inbox but I feel it'll inevitably end up being chopped by Google so I just can't justify switching to it and getting used to it right now.
manan_doshi 9y ago
I hope we get a usable GPG add-on that works on mobile from this
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
I'd love to build one of these myself, but can't seem to find any information on what API/system to do so. Have they released details yet?
iamgopal 9y ago
What about a simple add on that convert Google doc template with customer data in to attachable document ?
illuminatidum 9y ago
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sriharis 9y ago
Too bad a lot of business decisions are made on slack, or other such tools today. A bit late, goog.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
scott_karana 9y ago
Finally! I'll be glad to be rid of all the nasty browser extensions for Salesforce, Hubspot, and the like on all the Sales laptops.
homero 9y ago
Will gmail get add ons or just gsuite?
RandyRanderson 9y ago
How about just supporting previously existing features like attaching jar files? Google: "Sorry we're busy impl'ing features no one's asked for."
zdw 9y ago
I just want to be able to select text and bottom post again...
ForFreedom 9y ago
And selling data to third-party just got easier.
sebau 9y ago
Now with Add-ons, Gmail is definately the next Google+, and by far the most successful social network they've been able to create. But after 13 years of extensive use of it, I'm currently leaving Gmail for Apple iCloud solution. No ads. No analysis. Just plain good emails.
- miaklesp 9y ago
  Check out FastMail too
ksec 9y ago
Why do we keep trying to add features to email when it is overflow with information already? I dont check email anymore. At least not regularly and dont want to open it. Gmail's Spam detection is also no longer as good as it used to be. Gmail won the battle with unlimited space for inbox and much better Spam Detection. The first decade of Internet was Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, then we moved to Gmail. I wonder if there will be another email services movement.
parski 9y ago
Search results for GPG We couldn't find anything for your search. :-/
- Ninn 9y ago
  Indeed disappointing -- this has to be the single most requested feature in Gmail, how can they not open a new universe which could allow this, and then not include this.
  - smnscu 9y ago
    Not only that, but they have a guy who AFAIU spent his 20% time to build this feature (i.e. e2ee using GPG), it would take minimal resources to implement it as an add-on. I guess with all the usage data they have they know how much the general public cares about privacy. It's sad not even the Googlers who care can push some of these "higher good" features without being reassigned to some mundane shit. https://github.com/google/end-to-end https://github.com/google/end-to-end
    - vntok 9y ago
      Maybe all the usage data they have shows that the general public does not care about privacy?
mcs_ 9y ago
Since google asked to use inbox I never looked back (and I know that Gmail is better client but people are crazy)
rusty__ 9y ago
Just want to point out that as a user reading that blog on a 12" laptop screen, that page is a UI disgrace. The suggested articles popped up covering the lower 1/3 of the screen and the top bar popped down to cover the top 1/3 of the screen any time I hinted at an up scroll which on a laptop trackpad is extremely common. This left me with 1/3 of the screen to actually read the content of this post. Terrible design google, you can do much better than that.
CharlesDodgson 9y ago
does anyone else feel that technology is a bit stuck these days, like we are still talking about making email more useful. I don't know what's needed but the paradigm needs to shift, or something, it just seems like yet another incremental plug-in that will inevitably die or be underused.
pvdebbe 9y ago
I was a Gmail user since 2004 or so, relying on the Web client. It was good, the message threading worked, labels were strictly greater than folder structure, and archiving to "all mail" is an excellent notion. The web UI has gone to crap lately, it being overly bloated, not refreshing inbox anymore after a while, getting rid of plain text (though this was a long time ago). The message composition editor is a mess! I tried gmail with mutt, I tried gmail with mu4e. They didn't quite replicate the good bits what I wanted. To overcome the psychological barrier I changed email vendors and jumped to mu4e workflow with a fresh start. This is readily a better experience and since I didn't have to worry about fully replicating the Gmail experience I was able to "settle for less".

416 points by alooPotato 9y ago

This link does not open here https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/do-more-your-inbox-gmail-add-ons/ https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/do-more-your-inbox-... http://blog.google.com/ http://blog.google.com/ Doesn't open too But https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com opens and google.com opens. I have tested on my smartphone and didn't work. I am from Brasil, so, I do not think is some kind of restriction. Anyone have any idea what's going on?

CydeWeys 9y ago
Hey, I'm the Tech Lead of the team that runs .google. Can you provide more information? What browser are you using? Can you use some tool like https://ipleak.net/ https://ipleak.net/ to determine what DNS servers you're hitting? And can you try some of these other domain names on other TLDs and report back? https://nomulus.foo https://nomulus.foo https://nic.dev https://nic.dev https://pki.goog/ https://pki.goog/
- vit05 9y ago
  Hi, thanks. None of those 3 sites open here. What kind of information do you need from ipleak.net? DNS Address - 1 server 45.62.204.178 Canada Canada
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    What browser are you using? It does seem like you're having DNS problems. See the following: $ dig @45.62.204.178 blog.google ; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-3ubuntu0.16-Ubuntu <<>> @45.62.204.178 blog.google ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached That same command run against other DNS servers (for example, our public DNS server at 8.8.8.8) succeeds. Even stranger, against your configured DNS server, requests for non-existent .google domains do work correctly, as does nic.google and sites on many of the rest of our TLDs (e.g. get.how and iam.soy). nic.dev and bar.foo do work for me but pki.goog and nomulus.foo do not. It looks to me like you're having DNS problems. Can you switch your DNS settings? Or use a VPN that does that built-in? Also, why, if you're in Brasil, are you hitting a DNS server located in Canada?
    - vit05 9y ago
      I have changed the DNS and now it is working correctly. Two days ago, a problem occurred with the modem and they changed the device. All settings were on automatic. But I really can not understand why blog.google did not work right away, and why it was routed to a canada DNS. I am using Google Chrome and Firefox. Tks for take the time to help. The internet provider that I am using is called netcombo.com.br and in the past, they have blocked the use of others DNS and some services. I do not know if that is the case now. I have asked for others using the same internet provider to test and will update when they done. Edit. So, others using the same provider reporter that https://www.blog.google https://www.blog.google do not open there.
      - CydeWeys 9y ago
        Thanks for your debugging help. I'm working to see what the next step might be to contact people at that ISP and tell them that they're messing something up. You could also tell them via their tech support that they're misrouting requests for certain TLDs.

czardoz 9y ago

Does this work with Inbox too?

alooPotato 9y ago
it currently does not

chmars 9y ago

I hope that the 'Quick Links' function from the Gmail Labs will return as an add-on! On the other, it makes me sad that for my business mail, I am stuck with Apple Mail. I miss therefore many important Gmail features, including security-related features. And Apple Mail has still no reliable support for Gmail drafts …

rrggrr 9y ago
This. The disappearance of quick links killed my productivity. Super frustrating.

alooPotato 9y ago

We (Streak yc s11) were a launch partner on this and launched our Add-on today. Even though we already have a chrome extension for desktop, add-ons allowed us to live inside the native Gmail mobile apps. Happy to answer any questions about the add-on platform....

mottomotto 9y ago
What were you using before? InboxSDK or something similar that Streak developed? Have you had any issues with limitations in the official add-on API?
- alooPotato 9y ago
  See my other comment on InboxSDK but summary, yes we are using InboxSDK because we made it and because we still want the power it offers on desktop. On mobile we use Add-ons plus a native app that can be deep linked to from the Add-on. EDIT: if you look at the docs of the www.inboxsdk.com/docs there is a lot of functionality above and beyond the sidebar API that add-ons offers.
  - alooPotato 9y ago
    As promised: https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60ac https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60a...
    - mottomotto 9y ago
      Thank you -- I had expected some differences and I do indeed use some InboxSDK features that aren't present in the official API (adding to the Compose button toolbar). That was very helpful.
gnicholas 9y ago
Is there any way to modify the appearance of text within emails? My startup has a popular Chrome extension that works with gmail on desktop, but we'd love to be on native gmail apps also. For context (and to understand why we need to modify the text), see http://www.beelinereader.com http://www.beelinereader.com

wubbapubba 9y ago

Gmail is consolidating their dominance with stuff like this. If things start replacing email communication, gmail will just provide it on top which moves us further and further from a standards compliant SMTP GUI that email was. I haven't found an email client that reliably renders most html, yet we have addons and soon maybe Android apps in your email.

harigov 9y ago
I guess Microsoft is close behind and probably leading in the number of paying customers. However, a duopoly isn't that much better either. It's unfortunate that the spirit of the internet that resulted in many open technologies is slowly being circumvented by companies seeking to monopolize. Unlike old monopolies, where breaking apart is reasonably easy, these new monopolies are entrenched right from their technology stack.
edraferi 9y ago
I don't think it's quite so gloomy. A lot of cool add-on functionality relies on semantic markup in the email itself [0]. These are open standards by necessity -- any email provider can add support for them. For example, here's the standard for flight reservations [1]. I'm not sure how widely adopted they are, but Microsoft supports at least event discovery [2]. [0] https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/ https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/ [1] http://schema.org/FlightReservation http://schema.org/FlightReservation [2] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Automatically-add-travel-and-package-delivery-events-to-your-calendar-32e5cf0c-3e65-4870-9ff9-df3683d3fc97 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Automatically-add-t... edit: formatting
- duskwuff 9y ago
  Annoyingly, though, these markup features still require explicit approval from Google to function in Gmail. They aren't even usable at all for small sites, as one of Google's approval requirements is a "consistent history of sending a high volume of mail from your domain".
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

suyash 9y ago

Nothing new here, all this and more can be accomplished by a simple browser extension.

frew 9y ago
We (Streak) are based on a browser extension, but we're actually really excited about this launch since it works on the native Gmail mobile apps and it lets you install addons once and have them work across all your devices.
kash25 9y ago
Add-ons work across web and Android though :)
dabockster 9y ago
> Nothing new here, all this and more can be accomplished by a simple desktop app. FTFY

Numberwang 9y ago

Add Trello card may be something I'd use for sure.

falcolas 9y ago

Not much info in this particular message, but I wonder if this could be used with GPG to send and receive encrypted emails. I'm sure browser sandboxing would be an issue (hard to keep a key private when it's uploaded to another server and used in a browser window)... but still, the possibility would be pretty awesome.

comboy 9y ago
There are extensions that do that well already. But the problem is still that I don't trust the browser with my private key. I wonder though how reasonable my assumption is. E.g. how many security issues in the past two years could have potentially caused my key to be compromised if I were to use it that way.
AgentME 9y ago
The Gmail Add-ons are executed by Gmail and are within Gmail-controlled webpages. Nothing in the add-on is private from Gmail/Google. If you want end-to-end GPG-encryption where the plaintext and keys aren't accessible to Google, then you want to use a browser extension (such as Google's End-to-End extension or ones built off of it: https://github.com/google/end-to-end https://github.com/google/end-to-end).

mottomotto 9y ago

Is that notify link for general availability in the post working for anyone? I'm getting an authorization error. I've been using InboxSDK for a SaaS project add-on and I would love to go to an official API and have it work on GSuite mobile apps.

alooPotato 9y ago
We (Streak) are also the makers of the InboxSDK. We're planning on writing a post for how InboxSDK + Add-ons plays nicely together. Coming later today but in the meantime, tl;dr is we suggest having both if you're doing anything more than a sidebar. We (Streak) are doing both - to get more powerful API's on desktop but still having functionality on mobile.
- alooPotato 9y ago
  As promised: https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60ac https://blog.inboxsdk.com/gmail-add-ons-inboxsdk-e6d72fba60a...

tyingq 9y ago

I wonder if this is just "contextual gadgets"[1] that have existed for paid gsuite/gmail for a while. If not, they should probably consolidate the two. [1]https://developers.google.com/gmail/gadgets_overview https://developers.google.com/gmail/gadgets_overview

alooPotato 9y ago
I think these are now effectively deprecated
icebraining 9y ago
In my experience, Gadgets have been languishing for a while. We developed one to integrate Gmail with our issues tracker (it created an issue from the email content), yet after we tried to deploy an update, now using the new control panel, it simply never showed up again.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

edraferi 9y ago

More information about the developer experience here: https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com/2017/10/gmail-add-ons-framework-now-available.html https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com/2017/10/gmail-add-o... Edit: Looks like you build the add-ons with Google AppsScript. Very similar to Microsoft Office + VBA, on the web this time. There's a CodeLab tutorial showing how to build a basic add-on that populates a Google Sheets file with receipt data from emails: https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/gmail-add-ons/#0 https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/gmail-add-on...

zack12 9y ago

I have been using unofficial addons for a while like Todoist and Trello and love the fact that they are making a step in the right direction. More integrations, more love. On the other hand, I really hate their blog design. The reading space is less than half the screen. https://cl.ly/0h2z471o0v2W https://cl.ly/0h2z471o0v2W

forgotmypw 9y ago

Sounds a lot like Gmail Labs, which was discontinued. I've learned to expect most Google products to be killed off, so I don't even bother starting to use them anymore.

icebraining 9y ago
Labs were experimental features developed by Google itself. These are stable features developed by third-parties. They both extend Gmail, but that's about it.
- gnicholas 9y ago
  But there's still a chance that Google will discontinue the gmail addon marketplace, just like they previously killed Chrome apps: http://www.omgchrome.com/not-joke-google-killing-chrome-apps/ http://www.omgchrome.com/not-joke-google-killing-chrome-apps...
  - Fizzer 9y ago
    They also killed Hangout apps: https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/06/apps-that-rely-on-google-hangouts-wont-work-after-april-25th/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/06/apps-that-rely-on-google...
  - thrownaway954 9y ago
    Electron based apps seem to be the successor to Chrome Apps
    - tuananh 9y ago
      they are different i think. chrome apps will use shared instance with chrome if you're using it. electron apps on the other hands, are creating their own instance.
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    "Don't be evil (except when screwing over loyal and established customers is great for the bottomline)."

jypepin 9y ago

So, I started using inbox a while ago when it was announced and I love it. Really. What's the state of development of it? Doesn't seems to be moving much and a lot of features from gmail are still missing, and I continue to see dev happening on gmail and not on inbox. Should I be moving back to inbox?

sushisource 9y ago
Yeah, inbox seems vastly superior to me, with the exception that it runs like absolute shit on Firefox which I can only interpret as intentional, considering I find FF faster than Chrome for a lot of other stuff these days.
- lkbm 9y ago
  Some JS features are faster on Chrome and some on Firefox. Additionally, while Firefox is killing it on CSS and some layout stuff with Stylo and WebRender, JS is the area where Firefox isn't dominating. It's trivial to explain the speed difference without assuming it intentional. In Inbox's case, sparse arrays were an issue initially[0] (and like many of the perf issues, it's been fixed[1].) There will always be perf trade-offs. If you find any where they chose X over Y when X and Y are equal on Chrome, and X is faster than Y on Firefox, then let's talk about anti-competitive behavior. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963
- vmarsy 9y ago
  I specifically installed Firefox 57 so that I could try Inbox there, because as you point out, on Firefox 56 it's very slow (especially the initial load). On Firefox 57 with that new Quantum CSS, I found Inbox to be amazingly fast (I'd say even faster than Chrome on my yoga pro 2 - except for the right pane of Google Hangouts which takes a while to load still)
bengotow 9y ago
I think the problem is that 10% of Gmail users think Inbox is awesome and the rest think it's godawful for breaking 'feature X' they loved. Where feature X isn't one feature but a thousand tiny things. I think with Add-ons, they're trying to extend Gmail in a way that won't offend anyone married to the current UI.

pkamb 9y ago

What I've always wanted are widgets that show up in your inbox as if they're emails, but aren't actually emails. So rather than your calendar sending you an email reminder, it inserts a calendar "app" item that's opened when you click the subject of the non-email. Or a todo list that lives in your inbox, but directly opens a todo document rather links to a todo document. Would replace the never-sent draft I currently use for the same.

icebraining 9y ago
Not exactly the same, but with an Email Go-To Action you can add a button to the subject line that links to whatever you want: https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/actions/actions-overview#go-to_actions https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/actions/actions-o...

aNoob7000 9y ago

Are there any concerns about privacy? I mean now you have applications that will use a platform that Google is known to scan for information. I know everyone has heard this before, but I would like to see what people think. A couple of days ago, people were all up in arms about phone companies selling your website traffic. What makes Google better than god forbid AT&T or Verizon?

zitterbewegung 9y ago
These add ons are voluntary and you have to enable them. If someone is under the illusion that Google is better at privacy than anyone else they should re-educate themselves about that .
SquareWheel 9y ago
Well, their privacy policy prohibits that sort of thing. It also doesn't make a lot of business sense, as Google's biggest advantage is being able to target ads based on that data.
icebraining 9y ago
Google says they no longer scan Gmail for advertising. I guess it depends on how much you trust them, but frankly one's emails are often pretty juicy by themselves, so if you're really worried you should probably not use it at all. I moved off it years ago.
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  Do they "no longer scan Gmail for advertising", or do they no longer scan Gmail?
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I'm sure they scan it, otherwise it'd be hard to catch spam. I don't think they ever said they scanned it for any other reason.
    - 9y ago

shoover 9y ago

Does anyone ever want to annotate threads or messages with notes like next actions or why you didn’t reply? I always thought it should be built into gmail, but I suppose an add-on would work.

vm 9y ago
The Inbox (by Gmail) mobile app has this. "Pin" an email and you can write whatever you want to remember to do later. It's awesome.

shadyrudy 9y ago

Any add ons to Sort by Sender?

pfarnsworth 9y ago

All I want is to be able to define a search, and have gmail separate those into a new tab, with a badge that tells me how many unread emails are there. That's all I want and my productivity would increase drastically. They almost have it with multiple inboxes, but the layout is really shitty and I have to scroll around my gmail window to see the various inboxes. Why can't they just add this as another tab? It's infuriating that such a simple and useful feature doesn't exist yet. This is why having a monoculture for things like email is a bad idea, they don't really care.

alooPotato 9y ago
+1
- ents 9y ago
  Does [Gmail quick links](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmail-quick-links/ecbkcjeoffcjnppapdlncohmehhnfibd?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmail-quick-links/...) not do this?

guelo 9y ago

Gmail on Android is such a shitty locked-down experience. Want to create an appointment from an email? Nope. Want to set a reminder about an email? Nope. Want to link to an email from a notes or other app? Nope. OK, well now maybe. If you become a "business partner" with them and shove your product into whatever grand strategery they're cooking up this quarter. It's sad to think how Android was envisioned as this open system where apps freely communicate with each other but Google has been working overtime to kill that vision. Google in general just hates open these days.

late2part 9y ago
Just Like Java (TM)? Google is the new Sun Microsystems?
- TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
  Except Google figured out how to monetize the success. I knew it was bad when the JRE install started asking if I wanted to install search bars in my browser.
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    I think, per Zero to One, Thiel (for one) would argue otherwise. Take away search (read: ads on SERPs) and Google is close to an average, if not subpar, "success story."
    - dannyw 9y ago
      Take away the iPhone and Apple is a failing computer manufacturer. Take away Windows and Microsoft is a mediocre console maker and makes Office. So?
      - chiefalchemist 9y ago
        Read Zero to One. It'll explain the situation better than I can in a tiny textbox :)

dgudkov 9y ago

Is Google going to make Gmail an app platform?

dragonwriter 9y ago
Gmail is a component of GSuite, which has been an app platform for a while.

d--b 9y ago

Fast forward 2 years: Google shuts down addons

peterwwillis 9y ago
You think it'll last two years?

kristianov 9y ago

Is Inbox another abandoned Google product?

6nf 9y ago
I really like Inbox but I feel it'll inevitably end up being chopped by Google so I just can't justify switching to it and getting used to it right now.

manan_doshi 9y ago

I hope we get a usable GPG add-on that works on mobile from this

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

I'd love to build one of these myself, but can't seem to find any information on what API/system to do so. Have they released details yet?

iamgopal 9y ago

What about a simple add on that convert Google doc template with customer data in to attachable document ?

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sriharis 9y ago

Too bad a lot of business decisions are made on slack, or other such tools today. A bit late, goog.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

scott_karana 9y ago

Finally! I'll be glad to be rid of all the nasty browser extensions for Salesforce, Hubspot, and the like on all the Sales laptops.

homero 9y ago

Will gmail get add ons or just gsuite?

RandyRanderson 9y ago

How about just supporting previously existing features like attaching jar files? Google: "Sorry we're busy impl'ing features no one's asked for."

zdw 9y ago

I just want to be able to select text and bottom post again...

ForFreedom 9y ago

And selling data to third-party just got easier.

sebau 9y ago

Now with Add-ons, Gmail is definately the next Google+, and by far the most successful social network they've been able to create. But after 13 years of extensive use of it, I'm currently leaving Gmail for Apple iCloud solution. No ads. No analysis. Just plain good emails.

miaklesp 9y ago
Check out FastMail too

ksec 9y ago

Why do we keep trying to add features to email when it is overflow with information already? I dont check email anymore. At least not regularly and dont want to open it. Gmail's Spam detection is also no longer as good as it used to be. Gmail won the battle with unlimited space for inbox and much better Spam Detection. The first decade of Internet was Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, then we moved to Gmail. I wonder if there will be another email services movement.

parski 9y ago

Search results for GPG We couldn't find anything for your search. :-/

Ninn 9y ago
Indeed disappointing -- this has to be the single most requested feature in Gmail, how can they not open a new universe which could allow this, and then not include this.
- smnscu 9y ago
  Not only that, but they have a guy who AFAIU spent his 20% time to build this feature (i.e. e2ee using GPG), it would take minimal resources to implement it as an add-on. I guess with all the usage data they have they know how much the general public cares about privacy. It's sad not even the Googlers who care can push some of these "higher good" features without being reassigned to some mundane shit. https://github.com/google/end-to-end https://github.com/google/end-to-end
  - vntok 9y ago
    Maybe all the usage data they have shows that the general public does not care about privacy?

mcs_ 9y ago

Since google asked to use inbox I never looked back (and I know that Gmail is better client but people are crazy)

rusty__ 9y ago

Just want to point out that as a user reading that blog on a 12" laptop screen, that page is a UI disgrace. The suggested articles popped up covering the lower 1/3 of the screen and the top bar popped down to cover the top 1/3 of the screen any time I hinted at an up scroll which on a laptop trackpad is extremely common. This left me with 1/3 of the screen to actually read the content of this post. Terrible design google, you can do much better than that.

CharlesDodgson 9y ago

does anyone else feel that technology is a bit stuck these days, like we are still talking about making email more useful. I don't know what's needed but the paradigm needs to shift, or something, it just seems like yet another incremental plug-in that will inevitably die or be underused.

pvdebbe 9y ago

I was a Gmail user since 2004 or so, relying on the Web client. It was good, the message threading worked, labels were strictly greater than folder structure, and archiving to "all mail" is an excellent notion. The web UI has gone to crap lately, it being overly bloated, not refreshing inbox anymore after a while, getting rid of plain text (though this was a long time ago). The message composition editor is a mess! I tried gmail with mutt, I tried gmail with mu4e. They didn't quite replicate the good bits what I wanted. To overcome the psychological barrier I changed email vendors and jumped to mu4e workflow with a fresh start. This is readily a better experience and since I didn't have to worry about fully replicating the Gmail experience I was able to "settle for less".