6 ms·
Ask HN: Do people at Google not use Gmail? Why don't they improve it?
for starters, why can't Google distinguish an actual attachment from some image someone has in their signature?
- MichaelBurge 5y agoThere's a paperclip next to the date and if you hover over it, a tooltip gives the name of the attached file. I don't think I've ever confused an attachment with an image anyways, but there at least seems to be a standardized way to differentiate them. Google employees do use an internal version of gmail. (I don't work at Google though)
- mr-pink 5y agowhen i hover it just says "has attachment"
- 4khilles 5y agoI have a feeling you're not really looking for answers, but ... Yes, we use Gmail. We do try to improve it. For example, I think smart compose is a pretty nice improvement. I'm not sure about the specific issue you're facing. For me, attachments show up as these rounded rectangles and images in the signature don't. I'm currently on mobile, so I'm not sure about the web UI. Can you post a screenshot?
- MollyRealized 5y agoOn the very small chance you'll see this -- Gmail has begun bouncing Google Calendar notifications, and the bounce notice goes back to ... Gmail. So I still get notified, but via a bounce.
- mr-pink 5y agoi don't want answers. i just want improvements. i spend hours a day dealing with gmail. it would be nice if they considered how much time people spend using their software and had a desire to improve things.
- renewiltord 5y agohttps://i.imgur.com/eTKuNbV.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eTKuNbV.jpg Happens fairly frequently on Gmail. That email will show up as has:attachment
- jdauriemma 5y agoStrictly speaking, it does have attachments. The <img> tag's `src` attribute can point to a remote resource or a resource attached to the email. This is an example of the latter.
- dariusj18 5y agoThat's just how email works. Those are attachments.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Apreche 5y agoTell whoever is in charge that I want Inbox back, thanks, lol.
- inbox4lyfe 5y ago
- yoyopa 5y agohow is smart compose useful? maybe if you never learned how to touch type. or if you want to sound like the most generic person possible.
- emerged 5y agoIt helps give Google an excuse to comb through all of your personal emails and put the data into a machine learning model. They already have excuses for that, but this one justifies a bit more.
- 4khilles 5y agoIt's useful because it saves me time and effort when writing emails. I know how to touch type. Most of my email responses are pretty generic, I'm not writing any haikus. Should I be?
- yoyopa 5y agoi just find it awful and distracting. i have to consider what google is suggesting and whether i agree with the tonality and relevance rather than freely expressing what i want to say.
- peter-m80 5y agoI write lots of emails in english and I'm not a native english speaker. Having a smart email completion thing saves me lots of time. US is not the center of the universe
- Saphyel 5y agoI saw that there's a small update on the UI now because of Chat (former hangout, former...) but the point raised by OP is still true. If your signature includes pictures it counts as an attachment and the UI and everything still looks like 2004 when the beta started. I'm not saying that should change everything ... but in 20 years the only thing different is now there's more integrations with other products but gmail is still the same.
- throwawayboise 5y agoPeople who put images in their signature should be beaten with clubs and left bleeding in the moonlight.
- Trasmatta 5y agoInbox was a pretty big improvement, until they killed it...
- inbox4lyfe 5y agoHello fellow Inboxer!
- throwntoday 5y agoI have to imagine most users never actually login to the web app and interface via a mail client, either mobile or desktop. It has been years since I logged into gmail, and the only reason I did was to re-enable IMAP which they disabled on their own for some reason.
- yuppie_scum 5y agoMobile maybe but the majority of casuals I know definitely still log in via the web interface.
- singron 5y agoYes, but the overwhelming majority of Googlers don't work on gmail. My cynical take is that they have 2 billion users and aren't really interested in making significant changes to existing functionality. When I was at Google, I really wanted fixed-width text (I managed to add this with a user style) and tree threading.
- kcplate 5y agoWith that many users I have to think any change is a 25/75 love/hate equation.
- b20000 5y agothey don't improve it because googlers think everything they build is the fruit of their genius.