10 ms·

What happened, Gmail?

241 points by xoxoavi 8y ago

ggm 8y ago
It flickers. It animates. It's annoying. Thank goodness they did not break keyboard shortcuts. It's more intrusive as a gui than the old one.
- pmlnr 8y ago
  As long as google keeps the imap and pop3 gateways alive, we have a choice. Use them, utilize other webmails, even run it localhost, like rainloop; desktop clients, like geary, evolution, claws, thunderbird; command line, like mutt. Don't let the gmail interface drive the way you want to deal with email.
  - TheDong 8y ago
    Their imap gateway is nonstandard to say the least. The labels vs folders thing is already a mess, but it also speaks a protocol that is just different enough from regular imap that most clients (e.g. thunderbird) have a different implementation with quirks for google-imap. Using those clients is sub-standard with google's imap implementation, and switching between them is more painful due to how each one handles googles "labels not folders" quirk
    - JetSpiegel 8y ago
      It's better than nothing, though. It is almost bearable if you ignore the "All Mail" folder. The problem is that it might as well disappear at any time. It is already disabled by default for new accounts, and you need to change 2 different settings to enable it.
      - pmlnr 8y ago
        It always was, nearly since the beginning. I remember needing to turn it on around 2007.
    - pmlnr 8y ago
      This is true, I'm well aware of this, but at least there's still a choice. Unfortunately nothing is truly stopping Google to pull a Slack move and close the gateways... unless the amount of IMAP/SMTP users are significantly higher, than we know, or that those users are tech influencers Google don't dare to loose.
      - erichurkman 8y ago
        I would wager that G Suite users will keep IMAP/SMTP alive via Outlook and other enterprise deployments.
pferde 8y ago
Among "needed innovations", the post lists: "A good method for telling users what’s important to read and what can wait for later." To me, it's downright scary that someone would want Google telling them what is important in their own mailbox. Personal responsibility bad, Hand-holding good, apparently.
- praseodym 8y ago
  Just as scary as having Google filter out mail that is totally not important, i.e. spam? In Gmail you can (un)label email as being important, which will then train an algorithm just like a spam filter. Besides that, it will learn to recognise email you reply to often as being important. I very much like this feature; I set up the Gmail app on iOS to only send me push notifications for important mail. For me that strikes a good balance between no distractions and not missing out on important email.
  - stephenr 8y ago
    Spam can be removed by objective filters, that simply classify the email against known patterns/rules. Who you are or what you like is irrelevant to them. This is not that: it's you, giving a giant personal information sponge, a bigger tap.
    - halflings 8y ago
      What new giant personal information are you giving, really? If you use Gmail, you already trust them with your emails and the interactions you have with these mails. This features makes the experience better for users without having to give any additional information.
      - pferde 8y ago
        Yes, if you're using Gmail, you've already lost, but this IMHO inappropriately affects your workflow by steering your attention to, or away from, certain e-mails. To me, it's potentially no different from what Facebook was caught doing, and in fact, if done carefully, it is an authoritarian's wet dream. Yes, you can (supposedly) train the "importance" filter, but how many people will do that?
alkonaut 8y ago
Those that don’t use inbox, why? I’m sure there are features of gmail that are missing from inbox but what are they? Why do Google keep these two “forks” of the same product?
- MrMid 8y ago
  When I used Gmail, I didn't use inbox because I sorted my email in folders, which were missing from inbox at the time. But now I use Thunderbird to manage all my mail and I'm more than happy with it.
- ollebro 8y ago
  I dont need anything Inbox provides. I just want a list of all my emails, untouched.
  - xoxoavi 8y ago
    I think we are the same ;) and I would apply that to any other service that has a feed (Insta, Facebook etc). But for the people who have a red dot with the number 999999 on their iPhone, there must be something Google should do.
    - papa_bear 8y ago
      True, I’m up to 20k in my gmail red dot. It’s a big reason I’m desensitized to it now, and I currently have lots of red bubbles on my home screen that I’m too lazy to deal with (and usually social apps that I would t otherwise consider deleting). Considering how many apps abuse the red dot though, I consider being desensitized a plus. It also drives anyone who looks at my phone crazy.
- ClassyJacket 8y ago
  Because Inbox doesn't allow you to separate reminders from your email, which means I have to scroll two pages to see a single email, and then carefully hunt for it among 50 reminders.
  - 8y ago
nukeop 8y ago
Material Design is one of the worst things that ever happened to the design of websites, not only Google's but everyone's, since now so many are trying to copy it. I have no idea why anyone would want to see it anywhere.
- chenster 8y ago
  Couldn't agree with you more. We should have a drink :)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- xoxoavi 8y ago
  I think it's more about having guidelines for how things should behave and having a visual framework. It is true that many try to copy it and interpret it wrongly, which creates hideous sites. However, I think Google's purpose here was to create an extension of typography rules, grids and layouts rather than having everyone look the same. Some companies managed to use material design quite successfully and still reflect their brands (and not look 'the same').
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I actually quite liked the initial implementation that Google published in their original set of guidelines. The issue, I think, was that nobody, including Google, implemented it that way so we ended up with a bunch of substandard interpretations of how "material design" was supposed to look like instead of the real thing.
- spystath 8y ago
  My personal beef with it is the huge padding everywhere. So much wasted space.
- bitL 8y ago
  Yeah, it hurts my eyes every time I see it; can't even force myself to use Android anymore. It's like taking various design styles, putting them into a blender, adding bleacher, and serving it with white gloves in dust-free environment. Totally sterile, without a soul. I guess that's the way a large algorithmic company operates, leaking to everything they do, including domains they have no clue about, like aesthetics.
chenster 8y ago
@google, check this: https://dribbble.com/shots/4020485-Inbox-Client/attachments/921027 https://dribbble.com/shots/4020485-Inbox-Client/attachments/.... It's better than yours. Never a fan of material design.. seriously, Google is NOT good at design. Period. I hoped, in this Gmail iteration, Google would finally take the plunge and kill the flat icons and minimalist design and once for all. It's quite the opposite unfortunately. It got flatter and uglier. All so plain and washed out, one doesn't know what he should look at first.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  Looks like an Atlassian product :p
- pmlnr 8y ago
  There's nothing stopping you from running that and connecting it to Gmail via IMAP. Go ahead, make it a service, let people have a choice.
- papa_bear 8y ago
  Looks like I’d have to do a ton of scrolling to see the amount of info that the old gmail shows me. Everything is too spaced out for me ;(
  - Jabbles 8y ago
    Google is providing three new layouts to choose from, including a default view that highlights attachments like documents and photos, a comfortable view that doesn’t highlight attachments, and a compact view that increases the amount of messages you can see on a single page. The compact view is the most similar to the existing Gmail design, allowing existing users to keep a similar layout. https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/12/17227974/google-gmail-design-features-update-2018-redesign https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/12/17227974/google-gmail-des...
    - roberttod 8y ago
      This is such a departure from the industry norm, trying to figure out what works best and focusing on that configuration. It looks like Google already struggle keeping the product maintained and nice-to-use, I imagine these options make it a lot more difficult.
ex3ndr 8y ago
Article is a little bit biased as a one who worked on messaging apps claiming that messaging (eg Slack) solve communication is just wrong. Outlook screenshot is very simple and clean but... it mentioned as an example of nightmare.. Looks like author got in the his own bubble just like google.
- ex3ndr 8y ago
  > An efficient way to categorize, filter and search content. No, no one likes to categorize emails, this is work for someone else or for power users that's not a case for GMail. > A tool to help users fix mistakes they’ve made, such as sending someone the wrong email, or spelling something incorrectly. For a long time Telegram didn't want to introduce this feature since if you sent something this should be in other's inbox. If someone can modify your inbox than you won't be able to trust that some random email won't disappear. > Allowing users to handle their business better through Gmail (e.g. sign documents, approve things, review things). Uh, guy just want to put everything to GMail while claiming that this is not an "innovation". > Allowing users to design their emails in a better way. Do you want to receive emails from your lawyer in comic sans? There is a reason why FB, Slack, Telegram, etc don't allow you to style your text easily. > Letting users know if someone read their presentation and what parts interested them (DocSend). Breaking fundamental flow of an email. No one will see if you read and no one will be upset. There are a reason why slack dosen't have read status. GMail probably have a lot of problems now, but (sorry) this all just unprofessional judgment.
  - xoxoavi 8y ago
    I think these suggestions make some sense since they are still problems that exist. The way you'd imagine solving them could be different if you were on that team, with the data and would iterate to find the solution. The bullet points under the innovation section are not suggestions for solutions, on the contrary, they are problems that users still have. For each of these problems, there are services that are trying to solve that problem. Take scheduling a meeting as an example. Google's solution was to bring the calendar into Gmail and increase complexity. X.AI's solution is to make a bot that coordinates. Some other companies will have different solutions. The point is, what is the best solution for a user who is in the frame of mind of emailing. It is very easy to stuff things from different places one on top of another and it's called sustained innovation (if I'm not mistaken). But what ideally should happen is finding new ways to adapt these extra services, including these problems in a way that is matched with the main use case. Otherwise, it gets complex.
pmlnr 8y ago
Email was meant to be kept simple, and Google is making this exponentially hard with every single "design" iteration. Get off Gmail - it'll break your email. The article has very good points, especially when it touches the issue of "hidden" mail, like the promotions tab: there are labels and tabs. There should be only one system, and no, don't hide things from the user at this level. When there's 17k mails in promotions, eating up 6GB alert them, let them know. (This ties back to how WordPress keeps hiding anything technical from users, which is also bad[^1]) Filtering on Gmail is outrageous, especially when you compare it to Sieve. No option to match on custom header, seriously? Things like unprintable email is a bad joke. Unprintable? What if I connect to Gmail with mutt? It gives the sense of a false security. I'm aware of all the arguments against email, but so far nobody could come up with a robust, reliable (see SMTP retries), async, world wide, federated solution, that even touches the level of email. Here's a revolutionary idea: instead of trying to come up with a new email, stop breaking the current one, and keep using it. [^1]: https://www.rarst.net/wordpress/technical-responsibility/ https://www.rarst.net/wordpress/technical-responsibility/
- Normal_gaussian 8y ago
  > Things like unprintable email is a bad joke. Unprintable? What if I connect to Gmail with mutt? It gives the sense of a false security. It also fundamentally breaks with what the user expects. The user expects their email to be theirs, to do with what they will. I know of no situation in which I would like an email which I specifically cannot print; I have no idea how I would explain it to my Grandfather.
  - pmlnr 8y ago
    e-MAIL. The stress is on the mail part. When your Grandfather sends a letter via post, he doesn't expect it to be his anymore, does he?
    - Illniyar 8y ago
      That's the other way around. The grandfather is the one receiving the email that he can't print.
ipodtouchtip6 8y ago
why i am not allow to submit url
therealmarv 8y ago
Extra First Class World problems: Inbox is not optimized for iPhone X. Everytime I read this I cringe. How about the thought that your phone broke common UI behaviour and not your software which needs to adapt to a new screen culture. I'm sure very soon Inbox will support iPhone X. But there are many other problems in Inbox which I see more important like Unspam emails without Gmail.
- xoxoavi 8y ago
  True that. But I hope that's not your only take away from the article :) Still they updated everything else - so I guess they didn't cringe at that. Apple breaking UI standards, yap, they always do, gotta write on that too.
  - therealmarv 8y ago
    No that's not the my only take from the article ;) btw. I've read once in a German Blog that using on iPhone the app Outlook as a frontend for Inbox works really well. Never tried it myself but it seems this Frankenstein setup works better than expected.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > How about the thought that your phone broke common UI behaviour Ok, sure… > and not your software which needs to adapt to a new screen culture. Why not? UI paradigms change all the time, and software usually keeps up if it wants to stay relevant. How is this different?
- nukeop 8y ago
  iPhone X is the special needs kid that everyone is tired of.
- matwood 8y ago
  > Inbox is not optimized for iPhone X. This has led me to think Inbox is on its way out. Lack of updates is the classic Google move prior to killing a product.
jimmies 8y ago
I'm sure the Gmail team has done great research on this, and this might have worked for the majority of the users, but just not for some power users such as Hacker News readers. And I think, that's because we might have one false belief, that is User Experience/User Interface is one big, beautiful, monolithic top of the mountain everyone wants to reach. It is not: Power users and the normies might have different needs. A normie like your mom and mine don't know how to turn off annoying notification emails from Facebook, so they might need a tool to help them hide spammy emails. They need something easy to hit, hard to miss, because they use their fingers to point. But you and I use keyboard shortcut and know exactly not to give our serious email addresses away, we don't need that. An UX that is great for your mom and mine might be bad for you and I. I noticed that on one of my project that got on Hacker News and Hackaday, then got viral on reddit and media and such a week or so later. It has both a github and a couple of videos linked on the site. What I noticed from my rudimentary Cloudflare log and Youtube analytics was that the HN crowd read and looked at the github, but most didn't watch the video. The normies crowd watched the video, but most didn't read. To me, it was kinda funny. I think that's part of the crisis that GNOME 3 suffered lately. I seriously tried GNOME 3 for a while and their macOS approach - simplify, trying to make good choices by default - genuinely sucks for me. I want to see my options, don't hide them away from me. I want to be able to make choices. The problem that the GNOME 3 team doesn't realize is that their users aren't made up of majority normies. They are the ones who are savvy enough to install a Linux distro on their desktop. They are the ones that will go great lengths to customize something to make it work exactly the way they wanted. And GNOME 3 fails to deliver that [1]. At first when I worked on my project, I wanted to create something very simple that "just works." As time went by, it turned out to me many of my users, the ones that stick and support my project aren't the ones that just install and forget. They read the docs, wiki and the source code to tease out what I was trying to do. So I realized having a great, updated wiki is a very valuable asset. It takes great pain to do it, but it is worth it. The problem with project that are extremely popular like Gmail is that you tend to carter for the mass. But are they loyal? Are they the ones that actually use and love your product? Are they the ones that influence other people's choices? I think those are the questions worth asking and considering when designing products. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8etezq/_/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8etezq/_/
rangewookie 8y ago
I created an account to comment on the good experience I was having with the update. I did a side-by-side comparison of the old UI and the new UI and I've changed my stance. The old one is a better "email" UI, but google is trying to mature the email experience. A big problem here is that email showing it's age. Google is eager to hide less common tools behind menus. They want to delete all of the old "manual" buttons/tools so their smart filters can take over. It wont work. The truth is everyone likes email because it's fairly consistent, but we're forever trapped in 90's tech. Instant messengers have transformed the way that we communicate, but email hasn't caught up. Maybe... it shouldn't.
- swiley 8y ago
  I don’t seem why people prefer instant messengers, email does everything they can do.
- pmlnr 8y ago
  > email experience Email, at this point, is infrastructure. There is no need for an "experience" with it.
tehabe 8y ago
Inbox looks really nice and is (to me) very simple and I kinda wished Google would have uses Inbox as a template because Inbox has also two things which makes my life really hard: 1 I can't sent emails to groups in my contacts and 2 in the Sent folder it doesn't say to whom I've sent the email but that I sent them, which I already know. Both issues are also true for the Gmail application on Android.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
What about sorting e-mails? By size, for example?
- benrbray 8y ago
  I think that's a very uncommon use case and I can't think of a time I've ever wanted to do that. I've sorted by "has-attachment" but why would you need to sort by size?
  - rrdharan 8y ago
    Well it becomes important when your .PST file is about to hit the 2GB limit and you need to find large attachments to delete. https://www.lifewire.com/outlook-pst-files-size-limit-1173344 https://www.lifewire.com/outlook-pst-files-size-limit-117334... (NB: I’m being facetious, and agree with you - this, 15ish years ago, is really the last time I remember needing to sort by size)
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    When Gmail first rolled out, this was one of the most often asked questions. The usual answer was that the question is wrong, because Gmail is different and one doesn't need sorting. Fast forward 14 years and users still have to use workarounds like size:20m (that appeared in 2012 IIRC). It doesn't show message size either as if it didn't matter at all.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  I'm sure the four people who want to wort their emails by size are severely disappointed.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    It's definitely not something you do everyday, but once your mailbox get full you wish the option was there.
naveen99 8y ago
My gripe is when I star something in gmail it shows up 3 times in my outlook todo list. I suppose it’s partly microsoft’s fault. Hmm maybe there is a fix: https://www.msoutlook.info/question/copies-in-important-folder-gmail https://www.msoutlook.info/question/copies-in-important-fold...
finchisko 8y ago
Also what genius decided that left menu will slide on mouse hover when there is hamburger icon for that.
senectus1 8y ago
the missing bloody contacts is driving me nuts, otherwise its ok i guess.
rayiner 8y ago
While we are griping, the mobile website is complete crap on iOS, constantly mistaking the initial touch to start a swipe motion. So you accidentally open emails while trying to scroll through them. I’ve never seen any other website do this, so I’m assuming someone got too clever.
- mhuffman 8y ago
  Youtube (another Google product!) does this and it is infuriating! The youtube iOS app is utter garbage, but the site itself is nearly unusable because of the initial-touch mistake.
tgb 8y ago
The author's experience with GMail seems to be the opposite of mine. The new features for disappearing/unprintable/etc. emails sound like they're just going to cause annoyances while Gmail sorting things into promotions and updates is absolutely fantastic. And I use the "forums" tab too. This is the "good method for telling users what they need to read" that the author wants - that's what Primary is. This is the way to help manage the number of emails you get. This is the efficient way to categorize and sort the emails that you get. It's really not Google's fault that you've got 6gb of emails in the promotion and updates tabs without realizing it - they've been prominently showing you the new emails you've received in those tabs every time for years now. Here's the feature I keep wishing for in Google: when I attach a file, it should let me rename the file. I want to store it on my compute with a name that's meaningful for me and to send it to someone with a name that's meaningful for them. Eg: I want to have cv_google.pdf for my copy of my CV that I'm sending to Google for a job application but I want to have them receive it as cv_tgb.pdf to know that it's from "tgb". Similarly, when I download a file I want to be able to rename it.
- 8ytecoder 8y ago
  I have been using Google Inbox since the launch and I absolutely LOVE it. It finally solved my email problems. - I have notifications disabled for all but the important emails. So I respond to emails in time and I don't keep checking my phone anymore. - Easy to read and discard emails. Especially promotions. I actually do check them - once a day and once a day only and then delete them all. - Social/Updates ...etc are neatly organised. I check them during a downtime and not often. They don't alert me. - Organising emails by trips are great. I can find all the relevant emails in one bundle. - Absolutely love the GTD features - Marking as Done and Snoozing emails. My Inbox is always zero. I use that as pretty much a task manager as well. Overall, classification of emails make emails actually usable for me. I used to be meticulous with creating email rules and filters in Outlook so I get to the ones I need to and ignore the rest for my sanity. Now it's done automagically and pretty spot on.
  - mephitix 8y ago
    I love the little things in Inbox also: - Seeing things in the email list associated with the email without having to open them, like expected shipping dates, PDFs. I can click on those things directly in the list without having to open the email and hunt for them - Being able to pin things. This also functions as a 'selective offline' - when I'm traveling I pin travel and other important emails. Or if I purchased a movie ticket months before I can pin that and easily press a button to retrieve it without having to search for it One thing that worries me though is that not only is Gmail moving closer to Inbox (a good thing) but Inbox seems to be moving closer to Gmail... For example on Inbox iOS there was a swipe down to dismiss email list or email which made it really easy to work one-handed. Now they've adopted the Gmail-style 'push into new page' which means you have to reach your thumb all the way up the screen to hit the back button instead of just swiping down on the email.
jordan_ 8y ago
I moved from gmail to fastmail and am much happier.
ino 8y ago
It's also slower. The scrolling is choppy and I shouldn't need a top of the line computer to scroll smoothly through some emails.
legohead 8y ago
What got me is they moved the archive button. I have been trained to click on the email, move my mouse up a few pixels, and click archive. Now when I do that, my cursor resides on the spam or delete button. Oops! I don't think the Google of yesteryear would have made that mistake -- the google that designed Chrome closing tabs to stay the same size so you could close multiple tabs quickly.
spinchange 8y ago
I don't understand replacing the onmouseover shortcut to all mail from/to a given address with shortcuts to other google apps actions (add to contacts, compose, schedule event, hangouts, etc.) I'm mostly a keyboard shortcut person but that's a mouse action I use all the time.
dejournal 8y ago
I like the new design. My only issue is that the sidebar expands when I mouse over it. Does anyone know if this can be fixed so just the icons show?
ehosca 8y ago
does the new design allow me to sort my emails in date order received?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
EugeneOZ 8y ago
Better than Inbox, anyway.
- Froyoh 8y ago
  Better than Reddit's redesign
fiatjaf 8y ago
I don't understand people complaining on free services. I believe it's something you can do, but not as seriously as this article makes it sound. Gmail is a toy.
GordonS 8y ago
Something I really hate about Gmail is the way it places attachments at the bottom of the page. So if I open a long thread in which the latest email had an attachment, I've got to scroll down to the bottom to locate it - it's so unintuitive that I often find myself scanning the page looking for the attachment.
Proven 8y ago
To me Gmail is largely worthless. I use it only for spam (site registrations and such). I’ve had an account since the year service was launched.
roberttod 8y ago
I just went through my Inbox to figure out why I still use email. For personal stuff, I think WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessages are clear winners. 90% of my emails seem to be marketing I'll never read or notifications I ignore. I try my best to unsubscribe, but email really needs maintenance to work nicely. For work almost everything is Slack. Sales team and a few others still seem to use email for some reason. Email is vital for communication with clients and it's pretty good for a big announcement where you can then choose to "reply all" or "reply", not sure Slack solves that nicely with threads. Also email seems to be used for anything considered too important for Slack, but I can't see any good reason why it should be that way. When you boil it all down, it looks like a lot of use of email is for legacy reasons, i.e. some people still insist on using it. There is legitimate usefulness over other options when it comes to communicating between companies though. Even if Slack figured out a way to fix that, they'd probably require the reciever to be paying for Slack. I guess the ability to send a stranger a message is email's weakness and it's strength. Nothing out there has solved that yet.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  an email address and a phone number are still the only things you can safely assume everyone has. for many of my older relatives and non-tech acquaintances, the only options are email, sms, or phone calls. i dislike phone calls in general for all but the most time-sensitive and/or intimate conversations. i get a bit anxious on the phone and i don't like being essentially blocked for the duration of the call. i dislike sms because i don't have an iphone, so i cannot respond using a full sized keyboard without using workarounds like pushbullet, which i don't feel like setting up for the small number of people who insist on using sms. i don't love communicating via email but i would contest the claim that it is a legacy technology on the basis that it does not have a clear successor. there is no modern service that matches the ubiquity of email; the penetration is unequaled even by the likes of facebook. i would also point out that (personal) email addresses provide highly stable means of communicating with infrequent contacts. while people's phone numbers change over time, people seem to accumulate personal email addresses and at least forward the old ones to their main account. if i got someone's personal email address five or even ten years ago, i have a pretty good chance of reaching them today. on the other hand, i assume that phone numbers that i haven't used for a couple years are dead links. with messaging apps, you don't always have a clear indication of whether the person currently has the app installed with notifications enabled.
axiomdata316 8y ago
I feel with each Gmail "improvement" Gmail gets slower. I miss the days when Google’s priority was speed and not pretty. I feel less productive when I'm always eating for pretty Gmail to load and respond to actions in the ui.
Froyoh 8y ago
Between the Gmail and Reddit redesigns Reddit's redesign was so much worse.
bobinux 8y ago
Is it just me or does the new Gmail UI feel sluggish/unresponsive? Scrolling the mail list is lagging a bit, the left side menu takes time to initiate the appear animation and the animation itself is too fast. When hovering the mouse over mail list, the interaction icons do the lagging effect, which is really not nice for eyes. However the right side menu for Tasks, Calendar and etc. is nice, I like having them in one place instead of keeping multiple diff tabs open. I'm not sure if this lag effect is intentional or a performance problem, maybe React instead of Angular could help :D
make3 8y ago
the new self erasing and unprintable emails make me really hope we can opt out of the new gmail.
dheera 8y ago
Where is this "unprintable e-mail" and "self-disappearing e-mail" feature? I don't see the options on my Gmail. I would love to write a Chrome plugin to destroy these features. Once information enters my premises, I do whatever the hell I want with it as long as I'm not sharing it with others or violating any NDAs. In particular, you do not get to define the media and methods I use to access, consume, and save information. You just get to send me a binary number containing information, and it's your choice whether you want to do that or not. That's it. If you don't agree to me having personal freedom, don't send me information and don't contact me.
sssparkkk 8y ago
Been thinking of switching back from Inbox to Gmail for one single annoying and IMO stupid design decision: if there are multiple recepients for the email the main reply button will by default perform a reply all. Had me look like a dork a few times, replying to everyone that I can't make it to a party or something. Anyone else been bitten by this?
- hokoto 8y ago
  I think the party host who is sending his invitations without using bcc is to blame here. I use gmail mainly for business related mails and the default reply-all makes a lot sense - almost all the time other recipients ( managers, clients etc) are there to be kept in loop. If you forgot and just reply to it, then you have send the same mail again - or worse you never notice it.
  - sssparkkk 8y ago
    The party host is not using bcc because he/she wants everyone to be aware of who has been invited to the party. I guess it boils down to your default usage of email; I've never had an email client before Inbox that does 'reply all' by default.
- aembleton 8y ago
  Yes, I've been bitten by this and there is no way to switch it off in settings.
blarg1 8y ago
when gmail started filtering my emails I just deleted all the filters/tabs/whatever. Though it took me bit to figure it out.

241 points by xoxoavi 8y ago

ggm 8y ago

It flickers. It animates. It's annoying. Thank goodness they did not break keyboard shortcuts. It's more intrusive as a gui than the old one.

pmlnr 8y ago
As long as google keeps the imap and pop3 gateways alive, we have a choice. Use them, utilize other webmails, even run it localhost, like rainloop; desktop clients, like geary, evolution, claws, thunderbird; command line, like mutt. Don't let the gmail interface drive the way you want to deal with email.
- TheDong 8y ago
  Their imap gateway is nonstandard to say the least. The labels vs folders thing is already a mess, but it also speaks a protocol that is just different enough from regular imap that most clients (e.g. thunderbird) have a different implementation with quirks for google-imap. Using those clients is sub-standard with google's imap implementation, and switching between them is more painful due to how each one handles googles "labels not folders" quirk
  - JetSpiegel 8y ago
    It's better than nothing, though. It is almost bearable if you ignore the "All Mail" folder. The problem is that it might as well disappear at any time. It is already disabled by default for new accounts, and you need to change 2 different settings to enable it.
    - pmlnr 8y ago
      It always was, nearly since the beginning. I remember needing to turn it on around 2007.
  - pmlnr 8y ago
    This is true, I'm well aware of this, but at least there's still a choice. Unfortunately nothing is truly stopping Google to pull a Slack move and close the gateways... unless the amount of IMAP/SMTP users are significantly higher, than we know, or that those users are tech influencers Google don't dare to loose.
    - erichurkman 8y ago
      I would wager that G Suite users will keep IMAP/SMTP alive via Outlook and other enterprise deployments.

pferde 8y ago

Among "needed innovations", the post lists: "A good method for telling users what’s important to read and what can wait for later." To me, it's downright scary that someone would want Google telling them what is important in their own mailbox. Personal responsibility bad, Hand-holding good, apparently.

praseodym 8y ago
Just as scary as having Google filter out mail that is totally not important, i.e. spam? In Gmail you can (un)label email as being important, which will then train an algorithm just like a spam filter. Besides that, it will learn to recognise email you reply to often as being important. I very much like this feature; I set up the Gmail app on iOS to only send me push notifications for important mail. For me that strikes a good balance between no distractions and not missing out on important email.
- stephenr 8y ago
  Spam can be removed by objective filters, that simply classify the email against known patterns/rules. Who you are or what you like is irrelevant to them. This is not that: it's you, giving a giant personal information sponge, a bigger tap.
  - halflings 8y ago
    What new giant personal information are you giving, really? If you use Gmail, you already trust them with your emails and the interactions you have with these mails. This features makes the experience better for users without having to give any additional information.
    - pferde 8y ago
      Yes, if you're using Gmail, you've already lost, but this IMHO inappropriately affects your workflow by steering your attention to, or away from, certain e-mails. To me, it's potentially no different from what Facebook was caught doing, and in fact, if done carefully, it is an authoritarian's wet dream. Yes, you can (supposedly) train the "importance" filter, but how many people will do that?

alkonaut 8y ago

Those that don’t use inbox, why? I’m sure there are features of gmail that are missing from inbox but what are they? Why do Google keep these two “forks” of the same product?

MrMid 8y ago
When I used Gmail, I didn't use inbox because I sorted my email in folders, which were missing from inbox at the time. But now I use Thunderbird to manage all my mail and I'm more than happy with it.
ollebro 8y ago
I dont need anything Inbox provides. I just want a list of all my emails, untouched.
- xoxoavi 8y ago
  I think we are the same ;) and I would apply that to any other service that has a feed (Insta, Facebook etc). But for the people who have a red dot with the number 999999 on their iPhone, there must be something Google should do.
  - papa_bear 8y ago
    True, I’m up to 20k in my gmail red dot. It’s a big reason I’m desensitized to it now, and I currently have lots of red bubbles on my home screen that I’m too lazy to deal with (and usually social apps that I would t otherwise consider deleting). Considering how many apps abuse the red dot though, I consider being desensitized a plus. It also drives anyone who looks at my phone crazy.
ClassyJacket 8y ago
Because Inbox doesn't allow you to separate reminders from your email, which means I have to scroll two pages to see a single email, and then carefully hunt for it among 50 reminders.
- 8y ago

nukeop 8y ago

Material Design is one of the worst things that ever happened to the design of websites, not only Google's but everyone's, since now so many are trying to copy it. I have no idea why anyone would want to see it anywhere.

chenster 8y ago
Couldn't agree with you more. We should have a drink :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
xoxoavi 8y ago
I think it's more about having guidelines for how things should behave and having a visual framework. It is true that many try to copy it and interpret it wrongly, which creates hideous sites. However, I think Google's purpose here was to create an extension of typography rules, grids and layouts rather than having everyone look the same. Some companies managed to use material design quite successfully and still reflect their brands (and not look 'the same').
saagarjha 8y ago
I actually quite liked the initial implementation that Google published in their original set of guidelines. The issue, I think, was that nobody, including Google, implemented it that way so we ended up with a bunch of substandard interpretations of how "material design" was supposed to look like instead of the real thing.
spystath 8y ago
My personal beef with it is the huge padding everywhere. So much wasted space.
bitL 8y ago
Yeah, it hurts my eyes every time I see it; can't even force myself to use Android anymore. It's like taking various design styles, putting them into a blender, adding bleacher, and serving it with white gloves in dust-free environment. Totally sterile, without a soul. I guess that's the way a large algorithmic company operates, leaking to everything they do, including domains they have no clue about, like aesthetics.

chenster 8y ago

@google, check this: https://dribbble.com/shots/4020485-Inbox-Client/attachments/921027 https://dribbble.com/shots/4020485-Inbox-Client/attachments/.... It's better than yours. Never a fan of material design.. seriously, Google is NOT good at design. Period. I hoped, in this Gmail iteration, Google would finally take the plunge and kill the flat icons and minimalist design and once for all. It's quite the opposite unfortunately. It got flatter and uglier. All so plain and washed out, one doesn't know what he should look at first.

elvinyung 8y ago
Looks like an Atlassian product :p
pmlnr 8y ago
There's nothing stopping you from running that and connecting it to Gmail via IMAP. Go ahead, make it a service, let people have a choice.
papa_bear 8y ago
Looks like I’d have to do a ton of scrolling to see the amount of info that the old gmail shows me. Everything is too spaced out for me ;(
- Jabbles 8y ago
  Google is providing three new layouts to choose from, including a default view that highlights attachments like documents and photos, a comfortable view that doesn’t highlight attachments, and a compact view that increases the amount of messages you can see on a single page. The compact view is the most similar to the existing Gmail design, allowing existing users to keep a similar layout. https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/12/17227974/google-gmail-design-features-update-2018-redesign https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/12/17227974/google-gmail-des...
  - roberttod 8y ago
    This is such a departure from the industry norm, trying to figure out what works best and focusing on that configuration. It looks like Google already struggle keeping the product maintained and nice-to-use, I imagine these options make it a lot more difficult.

ex3ndr 8y ago

Article is a little bit biased as a one who worked on messaging apps claiming that messaging (eg Slack) solve communication is just wrong. Outlook screenshot is very simple and clean but... it mentioned as an example of nightmare.. Looks like author got in the his own bubble just like google.

ex3ndr 8y ago
> An efficient way to categorize, filter and search content. No, no one likes to categorize emails, this is work for someone else or for power users that's not a case for GMail. > A tool to help users fix mistakes they’ve made, such as sending someone the wrong email, or spelling something incorrectly. For a long time Telegram didn't want to introduce this feature since if you sent something this should be in other's inbox. If someone can modify your inbox than you won't be able to trust that some random email won't disappear. > Allowing users to handle their business better through Gmail (e.g. sign documents, approve things, review things). Uh, guy just want to put everything to GMail while claiming that this is not an "innovation". > Allowing users to design their emails in a better way. Do you want to receive emails from your lawyer in comic sans? There is a reason why FB, Slack, Telegram, etc don't allow you to style your text easily. > Letting users know if someone read their presentation and what parts interested them (DocSend). Breaking fundamental flow of an email. No one will see if you read and no one will be upset. There are a reason why slack dosen't have read status. GMail probably have a lot of problems now, but (sorry) this all just unprofessional judgment.
- xoxoavi 8y ago
  I think these suggestions make some sense since they are still problems that exist. The way you'd imagine solving them could be different if you were on that team, with the data and would iterate to find the solution. The bullet points under the innovation section are not suggestions for solutions, on the contrary, they are problems that users still have. For each of these problems, there are services that are trying to solve that problem. Take scheduling a meeting as an example. Google's solution was to bring the calendar into Gmail and increase complexity. X.AI's solution is to make a bot that coordinates. Some other companies will have different solutions. The point is, what is the best solution for a user who is in the frame of mind of emailing. It is very easy to stuff things from different places one on top of another and it's called sustained innovation (if I'm not mistaken). But what ideally should happen is finding new ways to adapt these extra services, including these problems in a way that is matched with the main use case. Otherwise, it gets complex.

pmlnr 8y ago

Email was meant to be kept simple, and Google is making this exponentially hard with every single "design" iteration. Get off Gmail - it'll break your email. The article has very good points, especially when it touches the issue of "hidden" mail, like the promotions tab: there are labels and tabs. There should be only one system, and no, don't hide things from the user at this level. When there's 17k mails in promotions, eating up 6GB alert them, let them know. (This ties back to how WordPress keeps hiding anything technical from users, which is also bad[^1]) Filtering on Gmail is outrageous, especially when you compare it to Sieve. No option to match on custom header, seriously? Things like unprintable email is a bad joke. Unprintable? What if I connect to Gmail with mutt? It gives the sense of a false security. I'm aware of all the arguments against email, but so far nobody could come up with a robust, reliable (see SMTP retries), async, world wide, federated solution, that even touches the level of email. Here's a revolutionary idea: instead of trying to come up with a new email, stop breaking the current one, and keep using it. [^1]: https://www.rarst.net/wordpress/technical-responsibility/ https://www.rarst.net/wordpress/technical-responsibility/

Normal_gaussian 8y ago
> Things like unprintable email is a bad joke. Unprintable? What if I connect to Gmail with mutt? It gives the sense of a false security. It also fundamentally breaks with what the user expects. The user expects their email to be theirs, to do with what they will. I know of no situation in which I would like an email which I specifically cannot print; I have no idea how I would explain it to my Grandfather.
- pmlnr 8y ago
  e-MAIL. The stress is on the mail part. When your Grandfather sends a letter via post, he doesn't expect it to be his anymore, does he?
  - Illniyar 8y ago
    That's the other way around. The grandfather is the one receiving the email that he can't print.

ipodtouchtip6 8y ago

why i am not allow to submit url

therealmarv 8y ago

Extra First Class World problems: Inbox is not optimized for iPhone X. Everytime I read this I cringe. How about the thought that your phone broke common UI behaviour and not your software which needs to adapt to a new screen culture. I'm sure very soon Inbox will support iPhone X. But there are many other problems in Inbox which I see more important like Unspam emails without Gmail.

xoxoavi 8y ago
True that. But I hope that's not your only take away from the article :) Still they updated everything else - so I guess they didn't cringe at that. Apple breaking UI standards, yap, they always do, gotta write on that too.
- therealmarv 8y ago
  No that's not the my only take from the article ;) btw. I've read once in a German Blog that using on iPhone the app Outlook as a frontend for Inbox works really well. Never tried it myself but it seems this Frankenstein setup works better than expected.
saagarjha 8y ago
> How about the thought that your phone broke common UI behaviour Ok, sure… > and not your software which needs to adapt to a new screen culture. Why not? UI paradigms change all the time, and software usually keeps up if it wants to stay relevant. How is this different?
nukeop 8y ago
iPhone X is the special needs kid that everyone is tired of.
matwood 8y ago
> Inbox is not optimized for iPhone X. This has led me to think Inbox is on its way out. Lack of updates is the classic Google move prior to killing a product.

jimmies 8y ago

I'm sure the Gmail team has done great research on this, and this might have worked for the majority of the users, but just not for some power users such as Hacker News readers. And I think, that's because we might have one false belief, that is User Experience/User Interface is one big, beautiful, monolithic top of the mountain everyone wants to reach. It is not: Power users and the normies might have different needs. A normie like your mom and mine don't know how to turn off annoying notification emails from Facebook, so they might need a tool to help them hide spammy emails. They need something easy to hit, hard to miss, because they use their fingers to point. But you and I use keyboard shortcut and know exactly not to give our serious email addresses away, we don't need that. An UX that is great for your mom and mine might be bad for you and I. I noticed that on one of my project that got on Hacker News and Hackaday, then got viral on reddit and media and such a week or so later. It has both a github and a couple of videos linked on the site. What I noticed from my rudimentary Cloudflare log and Youtube analytics was that the HN crowd read and looked at the github, but most didn't watch the video. The normies crowd watched the video, but most didn't read. To me, it was kinda funny. I think that's part of the crisis that GNOME 3 suffered lately. I seriously tried GNOME 3 for a while and their macOS approach - simplify, trying to make good choices by default - genuinely sucks for me. I want to see my options, don't hide them away from me. I want to be able to make choices. The problem that the GNOME 3 team doesn't realize is that their users aren't made up of majority normies. They are the ones who are savvy enough to install a Linux distro on their desktop. They are the ones that will go great lengths to customize something to make it work exactly the way they wanted. And GNOME 3 fails to deliver that [1]. At first when I worked on my project, I wanted to create something very simple that "just works." As time went by, it turned out to me many of my users, the ones that stick and support my project aren't the ones that just install and forget. They read the docs, wiki and the source code to tease out what I was trying to do. So I realized having a great, updated wiki is a very valuable asset. It takes great pain to do it, but it is worth it. The problem with project that are extremely popular like Gmail is that you tend to carter for the mass. But are they loyal? Are they the ones that actually use and love your product? Are they the ones that influence other people's choices? I think those are the questions worth asking and considering when designing products. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8etezq/_/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8etezq/_/

rangewookie 8y ago

I created an account to comment on the good experience I was having with the update. I did a side-by-side comparison of the old UI and the new UI and I've changed my stance. The old one is a better "email" UI, but google is trying to mature the email experience. A big problem here is that email showing it's age. Google is eager to hide less common tools behind menus. They want to delete all of the old "manual" buttons/tools so their smart filters can take over. It wont work. The truth is everyone likes email because it's fairly consistent, but we're forever trapped in 90's tech. Instant messengers have transformed the way that we communicate, but email hasn't caught up. Maybe... it shouldn't.

swiley 8y ago
I don’t seem why people prefer instant messengers, email does everything they can do.
pmlnr 8y ago
> email experience Email, at this point, is infrastructure. There is no need for an "experience" with it.

tehabe 8y ago

Inbox looks really nice and is (to me) very simple and I kinda wished Google would have uses Inbox as a template because Inbox has also two things which makes my life really hard: 1 I can't sent emails to groups in my contacts and 2 in the Sent folder it doesn't say to whom I've sent the email but that I sent them, which I already know. Both issues are also true for the Gmail application on Android.

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

What about sorting e-mails? By size, for example?

benrbray 8y ago
I think that's a very uncommon use case and I can't think of a time I've ever wanted to do that. I've sorted by "has-attachment" but why would you need to sort by size?
- rrdharan 8y ago
  Well it becomes important when your .PST file is about to hit the 2GB limit and you need to find large attachments to delete. https://www.lifewire.com/outlook-pst-files-size-limit-1173344 https://www.lifewire.com/outlook-pst-files-size-limit-117334... (NB: I’m being facetious, and agree with you - this, 15ish years ago, is really the last time I remember needing to sort by size)
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  When Gmail first rolled out, this was one of the most often asked questions. The usual answer was that the question is wrong, because Gmail is different and one doesn't need sorting. Fast forward 14 years and users still have to use workarounds like size:20m (that appeared in 2012 IIRC). It doesn't show message size either as if it didn't matter at all.
EpicEng 8y ago
I'm sure the four people who want to wort their emails by size are severely disappointed.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  It's definitely not something you do everyday, but once your mailbox get full you wish the option was there.

naveen99 8y ago

My gripe is when I star something in gmail it shows up 3 times in my outlook todo list. I suppose it’s partly microsoft’s fault. Hmm maybe there is a fix: https://www.msoutlook.info/question/copies-in-important-folder-gmail https://www.msoutlook.info/question/copies-in-important-fold...

finchisko 8y ago

Also what genius decided that left menu will slide on mouse hover when there is hamburger icon for that.

senectus1 8y ago

the missing bloody contacts is driving me nuts, otherwise its ok i guess.

rayiner 8y ago

While we are griping, the mobile website is complete crap on iOS, constantly mistaking the initial touch to start a swipe motion. So you accidentally open emails while trying to scroll through them. I’ve never seen any other website do this, so I’m assuming someone got too clever.

mhuffman 8y ago
Youtube (another Google product!) does this and it is infuriating! The youtube iOS app is utter garbage, but the site itself is nearly unusable because of the initial-touch mistake.

tgb 8y ago

The author's experience with GMail seems to be the opposite of mine. The new features for disappearing/unprintable/etc. emails sound like they're just going to cause annoyances while Gmail sorting things into promotions and updates is absolutely fantastic. And I use the "forums" tab too. This is the "good method for telling users what they need to read" that the author wants - that's what Primary is. This is the way to help manage the number of emails you get. This is the efficient way to categorize and sort the emails that you get. It's really not Google's fault that you've got 6gb of emails in the promotion and updates tabs without realizing it - they've been prominently showing you the new emails you've received in those tabs every time for years now. Here's the feature I keep wishing for in Google: when I attach a file, it should let me rename the file. I want to store it on my compute with a name that's meaningful for me and to send it to someone with a name that's meaningful for them. Eg: I want to have cv_google.pdf for my copy of my CV that I'm sending to Google for a job application but I want to have them receive it as cv_tgb.pdf to know that it's from "tgb". Similarly, when I download a file I want to be able to rename it.

8ytecoder 8y ago
I have been using Google Inbox since the launch and I absolutely LOVE it. It finally solved my email problems. - I have notifications disabled for all but the important emails. So I respond to emails in time and I don't keep checking my phone anymore. - Easy to read and discard emails. Especially promotions. I actually do check them - once a day and once a day only and then delete them all. - Social/Updates ...etc are neatly organised. I check them during a downtime and not often. They don't alert me. - Organising emails by trips are great. I can find all the relevant emails in one bundle. - Absolutely love the GTD features - Marking as Done and Snoozing emails. My Inbox is always zero. I use that as pretty much a task manager as well. Overall, classification of emails make emails actually usable for me. I used to be meticulous with creating email rules and filters in Outlook so I get to the ones I need to and ignore the rest for my sanity. Now it's done automagically and pretty spot on.
- mephitix 8y ago
  I love the little things in Inbox also: - Seeing things in the email list associated with the email without having to open them, like expected shipping dates, PDFs. I can click on those things directly in the list without having to open the email and hunt for them - Being able to pin things. This also functions as a 'selective offline' - when I'm traveling I pin travel and other important emails. Or if I purchased a movie ticket months before I can pin that and easily press a button to retrieve it without having to search for it One thing that worries me though is that not only is Gmail moving closer to Inbox (a good thing) but Inbox seems to be moving closer to Gmail... For example on Inbox iOS there was a swipe down to dismiss email list or email which made it really easy to work one-handed. Now they've adopted the Gmail-style 'push into new page' which means you have to reach your thumb all the way up the screen to hit the back button instead of just swiping down on the email.

jordan_ 8y ago

I moved from gmail to fastmail and am much happier.

ino 8y ago

It's also slower. The scrolling is choppy and I shouldn't need a top of the line computer to scroll smoothly through some emails.

legohead 8y ago

What got me is they moved the archive button. I have been trained to click on the email, move my mouse up a few pixels, and click archive. Now when I do that, my cursor resides on the spam or delete button. Oops! I don't think the Google of yesteryear would have made that mistake -- the google that designed Chrome closing tabs to stay the same size so you could close multiple tabs quickly.

spinchange 8y ago

I don't understand replacing the onmouseover shortcut to all mail from/to a given address with shortcuts to other google apps actions (add to contacts, compose, schedule event, hangouts, etc.) I'm mostly a keyboard shortcut person but that's a mouse action I use all the time.

dejournal 8y ago

I like the new design. My only issue is that the sidebar expands when I mouse over it. Does anyone know if this can be fixed so just the icons show?

ehosca 8y ago

does the new design allow me to sort my emails in date order received?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

EugeneOZ 8y ago

Better than Inbox, anyway.

Froyoh 8y ago
Better than Reddit's redesign

fiatjaf 8y ago

I don't understand people complaining on free services. I believe it's something you can do, but not as seriously as this article makes it sound. Gmail is a toy.

GordonS 8y ago

Something I really hate about Gmail is the way it places attachments at the bottom of the page. So if I open a long thread in which the latest email had an attachment, I've got to scroll down to the bottom to locate it - it's so unintuitive that I often find myself scanning the page looking for the attachment.

Proven 8y ago

To me Gmail is largely worthless. I use it only for spam (site registrations and such). I’ve had an account since the year service was launched.

roberttod 8y ago

I just went through my Inbox to figure out why I still use email. For personal stuff, I think WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessages are clear winners. 90% of my emails seem to be marketing I'll never read or notifications I ignore. I try my best to unsubscribe, but email really needs maintenance to work nicely. For work almost everything is Slack. Sales team and a few others still seem to use email for some reason. Email is vital for communication with clients and it's pretty good for a big announcement where you can then choose to "reply all" or "reply", not sure Slack solves that nicely with threads. Also email seems to be used for anything considered too important for Slack, but I can't see any good reason why it should be that way. When you boil it all down, it looks like a lot of use of email is for legacy reasons, i.e. some people still insist on using it. There is legitimate usefulness over other options when it comes to communicating between companies though. Even if Slack figured out a way to fix that, they'd probably require the reciever to be paying for Slack. I guess the ability to send a stranger a message is email's weakness and it's strength. Nothing out there has solved that yet.

leetcrew 8y ago
an email address and a phone number are still the only things you can safely assume everyone has. for many of my older relatives and non-tech acquaintances, the only options are email, sms, or phone calls. i dislike phone calls in general for all but the most time-sensitive and/or intimate conversations. i get a bit anxious on the phone and i don't like being essentially blocked for the duration of the call. i dislike sms because i don't have an iphone, so i cannot respond using a full sized keyboard without using workarounds like pushbullet, which i don't feel like setting up for the small number of people who insist on using sms. i don't love communicating via email but i would contest the claim that it is a legacy technology on the basis that it does not have a clear successor. there is no modern service that matches the ubiquity of email; the penetration is unequaled even by the likes of facebook. i would also point out that (personal) email addresses provide highly stable means of communicating with infrequent contacts. while people's phone numbers change over time, people seem to accumulate personal email addresses and at least forward the old ones to their main account. if i got someone's personal email address five or even ten years ago, i have a pretty good chance of reaching them today. on the other hand, i assume that phone numbers that i haven't used for a couple years are dead links. with messaging apps, you don't always have a clear indication of whether the person currently has the app installed with notifications enabled.

axiomdata316 8y ago

I feel with each Gmail "improvement" Gmail gets slower. I miss the days when Google’s priority was speed and not pretty. I feel less productive when I'm always eating for pretty Gmail to load and respond to actions in the ui.

Froyoh 8y ago

Between the Gmail and Reddit redesigns Reddit's redesign was so much worse.

bobinux 8y ago

Is it just me or does the new Gmail UI feel sluggish/unresponsive? Scrolling the mail list is lagging a bit, the left side menu takes time to initiate the appear animation and the animation itself is too fast. When hovering the mouse over mail list, the interaction icons do the lagging effect, which is really not nice for eyes. However the right side menu for Tasks, Calendar and etc. is nice, I like having them in one place instead of keeping multiple diff tabs open. I'm not sure if this lag effect is intentional or a performance problem, maybe React instead of Angular could help :D

make3 8y ago

the new self erasing and unprintable emails make me really hope we can opt out of the new gmail.

dheera 8y ago

Where is this "unprintable e-mail" and "self-disappearing e-mail" feature? I don't see the options on my Gmail. I would love to write a Chrome plugin to destroy these features. Once information enters my premises, I do whatever the hell I want with it as long as I'm not sharing it with others or violating any NDAs. In particular, you do not get to define the media and methods I use to access, consume, and save information. You just get to send me a binary number containing information, and it's your choice whether you want to do that or not. That's it. If you don't agree to me having personal freedom, don't send me information and don't contact me.

sssparkkk 8y ago

Been thinking of switching back from Inbox to Gmail for one single annoying and IMO stupid design decision: if there are multiple recepients for the email the main reply button will by default perform a reply all. Had me look like a dork a few times, replying to everyone that I can't make it to a party or something. Anyone else been bitten by this?

hokoto 8y ago
I think the party host who is sending his invitations without using bcc is to blame here. I use gmail mainly for business related mails and the default reply-all makes a lot sense - almost all the time other recipients ( managers, clients etc) are there to be kept in loop. If you forgot and just reply to it, then you have send the same mail again - or worse you never notice it.
- sssparkkk 8y ago
  The party host is not using bcc because he/she wants everyone to be aware of who has been invited to the party. I guess it boils down to your default usage of email; I've never had an email client before Inbox that does 'reply all' by default.
aembleton 8y ago
Yes, I've been bitten by this and there is no way to switch it off in settings.

blarg1 8y ago

when gmail started filtering my emails I just deleted all the filters/tabs/whatever. Though it took me bit to figure it out.