17 ms·

A new Gmail inbox

424 points by Lightning 13y ago

thoughtcriminal 13y ago
Enough of the Google ads already. Google makes changes all the time. It can't all be news.
- hammerzeit 13y ago
  I'm willing to guess that GMail is among the top 3 most used products by HN's readership. This is a substantial change in the experience of that product, as well as deployment of what seems to be some pretty nontrivial technology powering that. It's also the kind of feature that will impact any startup that uses email as a communication channel with its customers (to wit: All of them). If that's not relevant to the HN community I'm not sure what is.
  - Fuzzwah 13y ago
    Ok, I'll bite. What do you think the other top 2 products are?
    - rcsorensen 13y ago
      Google Search and Hacker News.
    - kes 13y ago
      Search. Analytics? Adwords?
      - Nowyouknow 13y ago
        Doubtful on both. HN is mostly made up of developers. We let the business folk handle that jazz. I make it work.
    - msrpotus 13y ago
      GitHub and Google search, I'd guess.
      - Fuzzwah 13y ago
        GitHub was top of my guesses.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
pkfrank 13y ago
I'm encouraged that they seem to allow you to toggle this new inbox on/off as you wish. In contrast to the "new" compose box which will eventually be forced onto everyone.
- jcfrei 13y ago
  I'm just gonna hijack this thread in case any gmail devs are dropping by. the new compose box is a joke - why would you force users to write emails in a small window in the bottom right corner?!
  - johansch 13y ago
    I guess the rationale is that they let you navigate your gmail in the background, flipping back and forth between conversations etc, while composing the new mail. I just wish the compose box was freely movable. On a very large screen it is indeed awkward to type in the bottom right corner only.
    - LordIllidan 13y ago
      You do know that you can popout the compose box, or even the other chat boxes into popups which you can expand as you wish?
      - johansch 13y ago
        You can pop it out, but that creates a whole new browser window. That's clunky.
        LordIllidan 13y ago
        It makes a lot of sense in a multiscreen environment - I personally like it.
  - leecbaker 13y ago
    I appreciate the ability to browse around my inbox while writing an email, and I suspect that is why the change was made; however, I wish they had left in the ability to compose from the old compose window.
hammerzeit 13y ago
As a user, I think I'm excited by this, although a lot will depend on the core usability and accuracy -- this is where this kind of technology often founders. As an entrepreneur, this seems phenomenally relevant, given the relative penetration of GMail among early adopters. The choices that GMail makes can, within limits of what users will tolerate, create new behaviors for its users and eliminate old ones. This can create landgrab opportunities for startups capable of harnessing the new forms of attention and be destructive for startups addicted to the old forms.
shared4you 13y ago
So, basically Gmail labels have been converted into tabs. One tab per label. I can get rid of labels now.
- ensmotko 13y ago
  But there doesn't seem to be an option for custom labels (tabs). You can only choose between Social, Promotion, Updates and Forums at the moment.
Ziomislaw 13y ago
good thing I already started to "delete" myself from google. there are really bent on shooving G+ down ppl's throats.
- ensmotko 13y ago
  I was really excited about Google Game Services and I've even implemented them into my game, but then I discovered users need a Google+ account (not just a Google account) in order to use high-scores/achievements. Now I'm considering whether or not to actually publish the version of the game with achievements/high-scores...
  - Ziomislaw 13y ago
    aren't games on google+ now being deprecated? anyway, I think one logic game there had an internal scoreboard (as it was being published from many other locations) and scoreboard copy was also being pushed to g+.
    - ensmotko 13y ago
      Yes, google+ games are being deprecated. But Google Game Services is something very different, it's an API that makes it easy for game developers to implement achievements, scoreboards and multiplayer. It turns out that your users need a google+ account to get access to these features, thus making them less awesome as I originally thought.
adventured 13y ago
So they're giving me sub folders ("tabs") for my inbox folder. How very 1999. What Gmail is really doing is adding more layers of complexity. Now they have hard wired folders (inbox, sent, etc), labels (aka custom folders), tabs in the inbox, and importance markers (starred / not). They're making the same mistake that consumed many of Microsoft's email efforts: adding complexity thinking that's how you add 'power controls' and make it easier to sort mail.
- aiiane 13y ago
  not forced to use it. What would you rather they add?
  - adventured 13y ago
    Who said I want them to 'add' anything? They can make it possible for me to easily search a trillion pages online from one input box, with a great hit ratio for what I'm actually looking for. But they need to add comical layers of complexity - none of which is new or unique - just to sort my email? It's depressing if that's the best their Gmail team can do. These 'features' have been done before by other companies and other services, and they didn't solve the sorting problem of email. They're just repeating mistakes other companies made many years ago. There's nothing special about sub folders for an inbox folder, even if you call it a tab. I would argue that Google needs to think originally again about email, as they did when they first came up with Gmail, and not repeat the poor product choices made by other email products and services.
    - hnriot 13y ago
      the same old whining. If you don't like the new features, the blog clearly says you can choose not to use them, they provide backward compatibility. You say this has been done before, what hasn't. You should live with the features for a while before jumping to immediately trashing them without even having used them. Nothing is "new or unique" - and nobody wants that either. They want steady improvements without losing familiarity.
moskie 13y ago
It's not available to me yet, so I'm not sure how exactly it works.... but their example pic showing "Promotions" as one of the tabs is pretty disheartening. The post here says it's customizable, so I hope that is not mandatory.
- aiiane 13y ago
  Can you elaborate on why you feel it's disheartening?
  - moskie 13y ago
    It comes off as something being masked as a "feature," when in actuality it is just something that is trying to get me to spend money. It seems like it blurs the line between the "content" of my inbox and advertising.
    - aiiane 13y ago
      I think you misunderstand what that tab is for. It's not a place for Google advertising; it's a place where promotional emails from any site are automatically sorted into - to keep them separate from other useful email. E.g. a clothing website that sends emails about weekly sales - that'll end up under Promotional.
      - moskie 13y ago
        Ok, I see what you're saying. I guess that pic just comes off as being in poor taste in this post then. Because, in reality, those are not the tabs normal people would set up. So I began to question what the point of the feature was. Is it really to help me organize my inbox? Or is it for Google to show me things they want me to spend money on?
        aiiane 13y ago
        You don't think people would set up a tab to keep all of the noisy "this is what's on sale this week" emails separate if they could?
rayiner 13y ago
Wait, are these categories fixed? If so, more proof that gmail is now made for kids: "We get a lot of different types of email: messages from friends, social notifications, deals and offers, confirmations and receipts, and more." That doesn't remotely begin to describe my inbox, but then again I haven't been in high school for a long time now. Where is the tab for "bills"?
- maratd 13y ago
  > Where is the tab for "bills"? It's a label you create with a filter that has all the email addresses of your providers, so everything skips your Inbox and gets sorted automatically. Who said GMail has to be designed for engineers? The majority of people have no idea what a filter is and wouldn't be able to figure one out even if you told them where to find it. As long as the features that I need are there, I don't care what fluff they add on top, so long as I can turn it off. And I can turn this off.
- ajanuary 13y ago
  Bills seem to come under 'Updates'
- pnachbaur 13y ago
  It sounds like that would fall into the "Updates" category
- dannyr 13y ago
  If you read the article, it says you can turn off this feature.
- RobAtticus 13y ago
  Adults don't get messages from friends? Adults don't get deals and offers from Groupon, LivingSocial, or places they've shopped before? Adults don't get confirmations and receipts for things they purchase from Amazon or for flights they're taking? These all seem like things people have in their email regardless of age. Your point seems pretty flimsy.
- Jack000 13y ago
  Gmail was originally for the power user, but now it's for the masses. Most people don't customize their tools, so these changes fits in well with their pivot to "casual users". Maybe this means opportunities will arise for a newer cooler mail service.
ktf 13y ago
Is this different than folders? Or labels? Is the primary benefit here that these categories are more prominent in the UI?
- aiiane 13y ago
  Unlike labels, which require fixed rules (or manual action) to place emails into them, the tabs sort emails algorithmically.
  - ktf 13y ago
    So I have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about how I want my mail to be filtered rather than manually put my own correct filters in place? Doesn't seem right for me, but I guess I can see the draw for folks who don't want to deal with setting this stuff up themselves. (Which is probably most folks.)
    - khalstvedt 13y ago
      This (incorrect assumptions leading to frustration) is definitely the most troubling thing to me about automagic solutions. I'm currently working on a project that incorporates this idea of sorting email into contexts (http://solnovus.com http://solnovus.com, not much info up as of yet), so we've been thinking a lot about this problem specifically. We are working in user-defined contexts from day one (not all users fit into the 5-context model), but I think incorrect classification is the most important issue to address to minimize user frustration. We are approaching it by treating topic and context membership fuzzily and using graph visualization to aid in traversal of inexact queries. I couldn't agree with you more: there are serious problems with binary membership and "automatic" filtering.
    - cjhopman 13y ago
      Do you find that you often have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about what mail you consider spam?
- MitziMoto 13y ago
  I don't have it available yet, but if I had to guess I'd say the primary benefit is the algorithms that sort mail into these categories.
bretthopper 13y ago
These comments are pretty sad. I know we feel the need to comment on everything right away these days, but honestly there isn't much to say about this feature until we've actually used it. HN almost universally believes in execution over the idea, yet here we are trashing an idea before seeing the execution. It's great that Gmail is trying to innovate and improve the email experience. Maybe this feature won't work out but how about we try it out first?
- owenjones 13y ago
  Judging by their recent change of making GChats part of the Google+ Hangout system I am nervous and skeptical about the changes to GMail.
  - taigeair 13y ago
    I tried the new hangout box but I'm not able to figure out how to make calls to landlines from the chatbox anymore. Did you guys have that issue?
    - intrazoo 13y ago
      Hangouts does not currently support that, but it is on the way. Hopefully it is soon!
  - hadem 13y ago
    Perhaps you'd be happier going back to AOL or Hotmail? I don't understand the negativity around change. If they never changed, people would complain that they are in a rut, that they don't innovate, etc.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      The complaints are not about change in general, but about changes that are simultaneously negative and inescapable. If a new version is better, then great -- but if it is worse and you cannot continue to use the old version, you have every right to complain. I avoid being dependent on web apps for this very reason: I like to be able to downgrade when necessary.
harrisonpowers 13y ago
I'm sure this will help a lot of folks, but I'll keep using my filters and custom inboxes.
bbx 13y ago
The main difference I can see with labels (at least for power users) is that the mails get filtered automatically by Google in these categories. I believe that most of us here on HN won't see this feature as revolutionary but it might help the less tech-savvy ones. For quite some time, I've been happy with GMail because I set up a system through which each email is ultimately stored in one of my predefined labels. I wrote an article about it [1]. It's both simple to setup and easy to use. And although I don't receive that many emails, I believe it can scale quite easily. [1] http://jgthms.com/organized-gmail-inbox.html http://jgthms.com/organized-gmail-inbox.html
- ensmotko 13y ago
  I actually like the tabs idea, but at the moment I find it useless. If there was an option to show my custom labels (instead of the predefined ones) it would be an awesome addition.
- div 13y ago
  I have a similar system, but yours does take things a step further. I'll definitely feel like wasting an hour sometime revising my own setup :) That said, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. If the automatic filtering is done well, it will be a killer feature for normal users. From glancing over her shoulder, I know my girlfriend has hundreds, if not thousands of unread mails, most of which would probably end up in the promotions tab. I'm positive this change will make it much easier for her to check her email at a glance.
- medell 13y ago
  This seems like a natural step in inbox evolution and I can see it being useful for many of my less savvy friends & family. Some recent startups have tried to solve this problem, i.e. my friends at Lightermail: http://www.lightermail.com http://www.lightermail.com
- nirvdrum 13y ago
  outlook.com has a similar feature, but it seems far less obtrusive and a bit more useful. Having a "Shipping Notifications" category for instance has been really handy. My gut is the outlook.com implementation is more user friendly in general. But I'm happy to see two big email services now competing to add useful features (even if execution might be flawed at times).
mrgreenfur 13y ago
Seems like this is the G+ification of Gmail. All of googles other products (like all the examples shown: g+, zagat, offers, etc) get featured prominently to get more of those sweet, sweet gmail eyeballs. This is the monetization of gmail. Eyeballs directed towards actual paying or ad-supported services, which is a huge advantage.
- aiiane 13y ago
  Err, what? The labels only sort your existing email. There's no new content involved.
Timothee 13y ago
I find all these new email products (Sparrow, Mailbox, etc.) interesting on a UI/UX level but they're highly irrelevant to me. I always read about how hard it has become to manage one's inbox, but I really don't have a problem with it. My system is simple: do not sign-up for newsletter or notifications (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, etc.) you won't read, unsubscribe anytime you realize you don't read the ones you receive, delete emails you won't ever need again, archive the ones that are nice to keep around but won't require anything from you anytime soon, and use filters whenever possible. So in the end, I don't receive that many emails per day. I certainly don't receive any promotions in the mail… that's just asking for trouble. Right now I have 25 threads in my inbox and the vast majority of them I keep around because they have pictures I want to save in iPhoto but haven't had time to. (I need to find a system for that actually)
- nwh 13y ago
  It's almost impossible to /avoid/ getting signed up for a pile of "newsletter" spam. Pretty much everybody that has access to my email address floods me with them.
  - lallysingh 13y ago
    Keep hitting the 'unsubscribe' links. For those that don't work, put in a filter to auto-delete before you see them.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      Or you can just mark as spam. Most of those "newsletters" and advertisements follow a pattern that is easy for Bayesian filters to recognize (I speak from experience). Your spam filter has been trained enough when it preemptively removes such mail from your inbox.
  - blktiger 13y ago
    I used to think that way. Then I started actually using the unsubscribe links and (surprise!) I found that I stopped getting so much junk. I don't really have to hit unsubscribe very much anymore, just whenever my name gets added by some new service I signed up for.
dannyr 13y ago
"If the new inbox isn't quite your style, you can simply switch off all optional tabs to go back to classic view, or switch to any of your other favorite inbox types." If this new Gmail feature doesn't suit you, you can TURN IT OFF.
- Kayaki 13y ago
  I just hope they don't retire the "classic" view over time, like they are doing it to the classic compose interface.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  To be fair, that would be an advantage this feature has over ALL THE OTHER OBNOXIOUS FEATURES they've done to mangle the layout over the past N years - features that you could postpone but not avoid. cough New Compose coughcough
- Karunamon 13y ago
  Problem is, if it's anything like usual Google features, it follows a common path: New feature announced --> Deployed to @gmail users -- Deployed to Apps users --> Old feature deprecated --> old feature removed Google has a feature of eventually forcing people onto bad UI layouts.. for example Youtube.
  - piyush_soni 13y ago
    But you still stick to it, so it doesn't show up in numbers to them - otherwise they'll change it back to what more people liked - or may be it already is that way?
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      Most of my (and I imagine a good chunk of this site's readership) access to GMail is handled through IMAP, for one. For two, I struggle to think of a UI cockup of an email app on the level required to drive people to switch ecosystems.
ziko 13y ago
People who want their email under control already have something similar - for instance, I have filters and labels and folders for Newsletters and offers, one for Family and friends, University and so on. People who haven't taken control of their inbox yet won't be bothered to do that now. Loved the music in the video though.
- aiiane 13y ago
  Which is why the tabs have automatic algorithmic categorization - so that all of the people who don't take the time to set up custom filters and labels still get some automatic organization.
badhairday 13y ago
New day, different way to organize your inbox. What it comes down to is the ability to find a system that works for you and then to keep up with it.
rjv 13y ago
I hope they don't neglect the vertical-split view with this update. It's easily the most productive way to to use Gmail IMO.
adastra 13y ago
Disaster. 1) I just turned it on, and it is not customizable at all. You cannot create custom tabs, and you can't even pick what goes into the tabs they have created. 2) When you turn it on, it disables Gmail's multiple inbox. Multiple inbox is the only thing saving my email from being a complete and utter disaster right now. 3) Judging by how they are forcing the new compose on everyone it is reasonable to expect that they will force us to use this as well. (The new compose screws up at least two workflows for me, btw. For example, sending a form email to several people is now a pain because I have to manually click "edit subject" to remove the "Fwd:"). If they force this on me, it will completely destroy my ability to use gmail. If they want me to leave gmail for good, that would be the way to guarantee it. What a mess.
- 3JPLW 13y ago
  I wish they would have taken more time to better support tabbed browsing instead of implementing their own floating compose windows in javascript. Now they've implemented their own version of tabs. Just support native browser controls, please. People understand them. They're simple. They work. The more stuff they add, the heavier Gmail becomes... and the more of a pain it is to load in multiple real tabs.
  - stdbrouw 13y ago
    Show me any big web app that doesn't use tabs at least somewhere. I don't see what the big deal is.
  - qu4z-2 13y ago
    I'd like to once again recommend trying the Basic Html view. You can middle-click the compose button (or any link, really) and it opens in a new tab. It's super helpful for keeping multiple emails open to reference while writing a new one (which is what the floaty javascript compose window is supposed to solve, but it doesn't really)
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  Gmail previously had 5 types of inbox view. Now it has 6. Feel free to choose the one you like.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
This feature is definitely getting misconstrued. There's been a lab for it for ages (not the new layout, but automatic labelling of these categories) and it works really well. Looks like they're A/B'ing it in (I haven't got the new layout yet), so if you haven't got it yet, enable the smart labels lab and see what you think.
gardarh 13y ago
Looking at my girlfriend's gmail Inbox makes my eyes bleed, it's a mishmash of seemingly irrelevant email, lots of promos or facebook notifications more than half of which is unread. I sometimes find it hard to control myself not to "clean it up". This seems like a perfect addition for her... as for me, I've already setup my filters and am already happy with gmail as is; I don't think this will interfere with that. Seems like a feature designed for the 99% of people who don't frequent HN.
- twistedpair 13y ago
  Seems like the video and solition was tailored for that crowd. Didn't see any invites to Maker Faire in the video's inbox.
- baby 13y ago
  I use filters, labels and important extensively but I still get flooded by mails (receive like a hundred spam everyday). I don't know what to do anymore. I'm expecting a lot from this new gmail UI
atsaloli 13y ago
All this advanced functionality and still no sorting by date. :(
- chebucto 13y ago
  Or by size, though I strongly suspect that is by design, to better make you use up your quota.
shmerl 13y ago
Will this new inbox work with Google Talk or it's Hangout only?
twistedpair 13y ago
Seems like a good way to get the Facebook and other social network spam out of people's in boxes, or at least buried under a tab. A subtle way to combat the G+ competitors and spammers.
ohazi 13y ago
I currently use the "unread first" inbox type, which puts unread messages at the top of my inbox. It seems that these inbox types are an either/or proposition. I can't have unread messages at the top within this "new" inbox, which is a deal-breaker for me.
- notahacker 13y ago
  If that's the case (I don't have the option to enable the new inbox yet) it's a shame. A combination of tabbed, filtered content and "unread first" would be a sweet spot as I'd quite fancy being able to prioritise unread email by subject matter without being inundated with those promo emails I'm not quite motivated to set "mark as read" or "junk" filters for.
napolux 13y ago
Nobody cares about Google+. And they still put it everywhere.
- lucb1e 13y ago
  I care and they make it worse. It's becoming more and more like Facebook, more chatty instead of with interesting content. Besides the obvious eternal September, which means more users and is a goal of theirs, they discourage long posts and comments by shortening how much you see of it, and making the expand link less visible. I now consciously make sure it breaks mid-sentence so that people know there's more.
- uxwtf 13y ago
  Google+ is certainly not a huge success, but they won't step back as far as they can offer it together with other services. Do you imagine Google offering Facebook tab instead?
cpursley 13y ago
Wow, who knew Gmail would copy AOL's Alto mail.
pbiggar 13y ago
The problem that I have, and that many here seem to have, is that as "advanced" users, we've already built a fully-customized system for ourselves. Like when Dropbox came out, and we all had git/svn/cvs versions of the same thing going back years. As a result, any changes are inevitably going to break our workflow. Even changes that are better for the common man cannot be better than our customized system. For example, now it filters social email into the same folder: great, I can ignore it while I'm at work. Except my twitter alerts from my company account. So it breaks. As another example, you apparently can't customize the tabs, and it disables multiple inbox. I spent a few years coming up with the optimum GTD steup for myself in gmail, and it's broken now. I think the solution here is really for people like me to use a different email client. Gmail has become the defacto winner, but there's probably a market in making a different client for tech-savvy, very heavy users, with customizable interactions.
ksixmju 13y ago
So this is for Gmail users that can be bothered to figure out how filters and labels work?
- travisp 13y ago
  I'm a heavy user of filters and labels, but I've fallen in love with Gmail's smart labels, which seems to be the early beta version of this. Creating and managing more and more filters for every single new sender of email gets to be a pain. Every time a new one comes in, you have to go through multiple steps to create one, and then if you unsubscribe, you have to remember to remove the filter, if you don't want your filter list to just get unmanageable. I find the smart labels do a pretty good job of capturing the main categories I want filtered into particular labels and hidden from my main inbox -- without any extra effort on my part. In my mind, anything that works well and saves me from tedious work is well worth it.
jonahss 13y ago
My browser has a navigation bar and a tab bar, and now my gmail has a navigation bar and a tab bar inside those. This started over a year ago, and has gotten even worse. http://threehuskies.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/why-is-there-a-browser-in-my-browser-j/ http://threehuskies.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/why-is-there-a-...
- jrockway 13y ago
  How do you plan to archive or delete emails without buttons to do so?
simonsarris 13y ago
Oooh I like this very much, though it looks like I'm not allowed to play with it just yet on my account. Labels and filters solve several Gmail problems but demand too much footwork on my part. I found that my Gmail experience got better when I adopted this credo about two weeks ago: Thou shalt have but one Gmail label, and that label's name shalt be "Needs Reply". Either it can wait, and be there when I specifically look (search) for it, or it needs a reply. I need to know which emails need replies, and I generally need to label them manually. Labels beyond this I view as a distraction. I used to label everything, now I label nothing. The fewer you can use the better, I think. And yet I still want a label or two for all the semi-solicited mail I get. Things that I do not need in my inbox, but ought to be there for my idle perusement: Banana Republic sales, MyHabit "deals", Newegg dailies, Kindle book of the day deals, and so on. And then there are things like Facebook updates. Nice to know, but I'll get to them eventually anyway the next time I open up Facebook, which I look at about as much as my grandmother checks the weather (read: Every hour, and for no reason). If this wants to distill my system for me then I'm ready with open arms. Bigger tabs at the top are way better than a hard-to-parse list on the side. Can't they turn it off for a complainer and roll it out to me?
- jonny_eh 13y ago
  For emails that need a reply, I just keep those as "marked unread". There's no way I forget about those.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    I star them instead. It's one click/keypress and they don't unstar themselves next time I open them (accidentally or not).
- udfalkso 13y ago
  I discovered another approach recently that works great. If an email needs a reply, I hit reply and save it as a draft. My drafts is now my one and only email to-do list.
- obviouslygreen 13y ago
kevinwmerritt 13y ago
A feature that I wish Gmail would copy from Outlook.com is the ability to auto delete emails after a certain time. I have all email tagged with the intelligent Social updates category delete after three days. I use Gmail and Outlook to manage different email accounts. The Outlook.com inbox has smart categories which are similar to these new Gmail categories/tabs. Instead of tabs across the top like Gmail, Outlook.com has Quick Views on the left hand side which activate the category filter. Hopefully Gmail will allow you to customize what is filtered by their smart categories like Outlook.com does today.
jpdoctor 13y ago
I assume this is about getting Google Promotions better airtime in people's inboxes. One more reason to remove the google flow from your critical path. We always knew there was going to be a time that they needed to please shareholders over users, and that time has come.
- vkou 13y ago
  This has nothing to do with giving Google Promotions airtime... And everything to do with filtering all promotional material out of the average user's Inbox.
juanpdelat 13y ago
Where is the Call to Phone button?
- masonhensley 13y ago
  Unfortunately I think they killed it in the Hangouts "update"
bborud 13y ago
Does this mean another two weeks of clicking away popups informing me of new features for every damn Google Apps account I have? Oh great.
mililani 13y ago
I don't know about this new Gmail inbox, but what I do know is that Gmail seems to be getting progressive worse with every iteration. Has anyone seen what they've done to Google Talk and Gmail? Basically, every chat message is now saved in Gmail as a sent message. It's so bad now that my entire Sent folder is cluttered and unusable. I had to resort to Conversations view, which I utterly despise, to make things more readable again. I have a feeling this new Inbox is going to be another iteration of fail.
drjacobs 13y ago
Post doesn't mention how to opt out... -1
brianbreslin 13y ago
first thing that popped into my head after seeing this: Other Inbox. I've had a similar feature for years from them, just tosses things in the OIB/xyz labels/folders. Also how will this work with something like Mailbox app for iphone?
gre 13y ago
Stoners made the Android screenshot.
jedc 13y ago
Disclosure: I work at Google and have been dogfooding this on my personal account for a while. I draw a distinct line between my work e-mail and my personal e-mail. In my work e-mail I have a lot of rules, filters, automatic labels, and use multiple inboxes. I also need to read and deal with most every e-mail I receive. In this inbox I don't (and frankly wouldn't want to) use the new Gmail inbox. Based on many of the threads here on HN, this is the perspective many have in mind. However, for my personal inbox it's been a godsend. The automatic labeling is highly accurate, and where it's not you can correct it and it learns/adapts. I can live in my "primary" inbox and only venture into the other tabs (social, updates, promotions, forums) only when I want to. I used priority inbox, and this is an improvement on that, in my opinion. So while I have a bias here, I've really, really enjoyed having this for at least one of my inboxes. :)
- DannyBee 13y ago
  FWIW: I feel exactly the same way. I use this on my personal email, and it hasn't gotten anything wrong in months, while successfully moving a lot of the stuff i only want to tangentially care about to where it belongs.
martian 13y ago
I'm excited about this new direction for Gmail. I think their team makes some of the greatest products in the Google ecosystem. But I have to say, reading this on mobile (Chrome for iOS) is next to impossible. The scrolling is all over the place. Thankfully ihackernews has a "view text" mode that makes this more sane.
marcrosoft 13y ago
Hate it. I Also hate the new compose.
techpeace 13y ago
Use Organizer for Gmail from OtherInbox: http://www.otherinbox.com/organizer/ http://www.otherinbox.com/organizer/ It's more customizable, has been learning categorizations for various sender addresses for years, and works with Gmail labeling.
therandomguy 13y ago
This is perfect for me once enabled on "unread on top" view. Currently I have to choose between the two. Is this on the road map?
runn1ng 13y ago
Based on the recent Google Talk changes, I halfway expected cutting support for sending e-mails in and outside of GMail
coin 13y ago
The blogspot article is utterly unusable on the latest iPad 4
tjbiddle 13y ago
Looks interesting - Will probably try it out, but not sure if I'd stick with it. I try to shoot for 0 inbox at all times - So all my emails are either archived or starred for later; I don't categorize outside of that. But, that's why they allow an option to disable it :-)
mzuvella 13y ago
Surprised no one has mentioned that this update puts the squeeze on Sanebox and Boomerang.
certsec 13y ago
This is the first change in a long time which looks promising for Gmail :)
franze 13y ago
kinda hard to trust google on this, after all they announcing this on a webpage that screws up scrolling on modern touch devices...
mherdeg 13y ago
An unrelated bug that seems to have shipped today: you can reliably deny an iOS user access to the Gmail mobile Web application in Safari and also the iOS Gmail application if you send them an e-mail which (1) ends up in their inbox and (2) has an attached .ics calendar invitation. They'll be forcibly logged out & redirected to the auth screen once they load their inbox in mobile view if their inbox contains a message with an .ics invitation file. On the flip side, if you see this behavior, you can log in, search for [in:inbox .ics], select all the results, and choose "archive". Neat bug.
gummydude 13y ago
Google is definitely dropping pre-honeycomb support as all their apps going holo way.
dools 13y ago
And they still won't let me turn off conversation view on mobile ...
guiambros 13y ago
Mine was just enabled (and I use my own domain with Google Apps for Business, so that's a first. Usually I'm the last one to receive beta upgrades). Here's my first impressions: 1. [Primary] tab was very accurate, right off the bat. It detected all personal and important emails properly. And all social updates went to, well, [Social]. 2. [Promotions/Updates]: these two are a bit all over the place. Honestly I don't even understand exactly what they meant by "Promotions", but seems it's "anything that is long, but not personal, and certainly not a simple automatic trigger/trigger". All mixed up. Promos went to Updates, and vice-versa. 3. It also failed to detect several emails from discussion lists and blog posts, that went incorrectly to [Promotions] or [Updates], when it should have gone to [Forums] 4. For now there's no ability to customize the tabs. At all. WYSIWYG. Not even the label. The "+" is just a shortcut to enable/disable one of the 4 additional tabs (besides Primary, that is always visible). Overall, this is clearly a beta version, so it'll be interesting to see how they improve the functionality over the next releases. I'm sure it'll be a nice addition to most types of users (particularly those that have thousands of emails archived - which is not my case). I just wished I could customize the labels right away; it's something so small and ridiculously simple to implement, yet it would allow users to make it personally relevant to them. But considering the OP, this should be coming soon. ps: I can't understand why so many negative comments about an optional feature. At least for now - and likely the next 6-12 months - you'll have the option to simply not use it. And if (when?) they force it down your throat, well, just vote with your money... Oh, wait. Did I just say money?
fffernan 13y ago
So basically folders are cool again?
ZoFreX 13y ago
> In the Gmail for Android 4.0+ and Gmail for iPhone and iPad apps, you'll see your Primary mail when you open the app and you can easily navigate to the other tabs. And if you don't have Android 4.0+, if you enable this feature you won't be able to see half of your emails - because apparently updating apps for older versions of Android is really hard, despite literally everyone except the people that made Android having no problem doing it whatsoever. (note to those not on Android: some of Google's own apps only update in lock step with the Android version, so you can only upgrade your Google Talk app by upgrading your whole O/S - which in practice often means buying a new phone)
nikbackm 13y ago
Hmm, I usually keep at most 10-20 messages in my inbox. Wonder how this scheme will work with that?
epo 13y ago
I use multiple accounts for this kind of filtering, main account, shopping account and throw-away account. On the one hand I see this as the Office-ification of gmail, the accumulation of useless features that add bulk and complexity but not utility. On the other, this is Google's reaction to the phenomenon of people signing up for multiple things from their email account and getting cluttered as a consequence. Not for me but probably of great use to people with lots of social- and shopping- traffic.
davecol 13y ago
It's a poor man's Active Inbox - one of the few Gmail add-ons I can't work without. http://www.activeinboxhq.com/ http://www.activeinboxhq.com/
kh_hk 13y ago
Hate to be the guy that goes offtopic, but the gender and target bias on the ad bothered me. So, girls are all about knitting, dates, having their nails painted and buying shoes? I know they just took some trends (knitting and lindy hop), but I found the ad awkwardly worded. Maybe it's just referring to personal inboxes, or someone that does not know how to keep the inbox clean, or how gmail is supposed to make your day easier, I don't know.
ronaldsvilcins 13y ago
Nice UI!
AYBABTME 13y ago
I've turned it on, it instantly categorized my emails perfectly. Just yesterday I was bitching about having to create filter rules for mailing lists and such. And then today this thing comes up. I'm happy, today is a good day. Unicorns and puppies everywhere!
coreymaass 13y ago
I love the new icons! I've been using gMail in fluid (http://fluidapp.com http://fluidapp.com) and had to dig around for a decent icon. As someone who favors flat design (I know, I know, buzz word), I like the simplicity of the new ones they show at the end of the video.
Thrymr 13y ago
I just enabled this on my personal account, and my first impression is that the categorization is very useful. Sure, it would be nice to have more customization available, but it looks like you can train it to some degree to tailor it somewhat. My main complaint is that it adds yet another set of controls on a cluttered and unintuitive interface that has already been changing recently. The tabs go away when you're looking at an individual email, so you can't go straight from a message in one folder to another category. As far as I can tell, when looking at a message and a new one comes in, you can't tell which category it is in. You only see that is there via an "Inbox (1)" in the sidebar. All in all, I think this is useful, but the overall Gmail UI is still disappointing, and getting busier and less intuitive instead of more helpful.
clausonh 13y ago
Why isn't the navigation persistent?!

A new Gmail inbox

424 points by Lightning 13y ago

thoughtcriminal 13y ago

Enough of the Google ads already. Google makes changes all the time. It can't all be news.

hammerzeit 13y ago
I'm willing to guess that GMail is among the top 3 most used products by HN's readership. This is a substantial change in the experience of that product, as well as deployment of what seems to be some pretty nontrivial technology powering that. It's also the kind of feature that will impact any startup that uses email as a communication channel with its customers (to wit: All of them). If that's not relevant to the HN community I'm not sure what is.
- Fuzzwah 13y ago
  Ok, I'll bite. What do you think the other top 2 products are?
  - rcsorensen 13y ago
    Google Search and Hacker News.
  - kes 13y ago
    Search. Analytics? Adwords?
    - Nowyouknow 13y ago
      Doubtful on both. HN is mostly made up of developers. We let the business folk handle that jazz. I make it work.
  - msrpotus 13y ago
    GitHub and Google search, I'd guess.
    - Fuzzwah 13y ago
      GitHub was top of my guesses.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pkfrank 13y ago

I'm encouraged that they seem to allow you to toggle this new inbox on/off as you wish. In contrast to the "new" compose box which will eventually be forced onto everyone.

jcfrei 13y ago
I'm just gonna hijack this thread in case any gmail devs are dropping by. the new compose box is a joke - why would you force users to write emails in a small window in the bottom right corner?!
- johansch 13y ago
  I guess the rationale is that they let you navigate your gmail in the background, flipping back and forth between conversations etc, while composing the new mail. I just wish the compose box was freely movable. On a very large screen it is indeed awkward to type in the bottom right corner only.
  - LordIllidan 13y ago
    You do know that you can popout the compose box, or even the other chat boxes into popups which you can expand as you wish?
    - johansch 13y ago
      You can pop it out, but that creates a whole new browser window. That's clunky.
      - LordIllidan 13y ago
        It makes a lot of sense in a multiscreen environment - I personally like it.
- leecbaker 13y ago
  I appreciate the ability to browse around my inbox while writing an email, and I suspect that is why the change was made; however, I wish they had left in the ability to compose from the old compose window.

hammerzeit 13y ago

As a user, I think I'm excited by this, although a lot will depend on the core usability and accuracy -- this is where this kind of technology often founders. As an entrepreneur, this seems phenomenally relevant, given the relative penetration of GMail among early adopters. The choices that GMail makes can, within limits of what users will tolerate, create new behaviors for its users and eliminate old ones. This can create landgrab opportunities for startups capable of harnessing the new forms of attention and be destructive for startups addicted to the old forms.

shared4you 13y ago

So, basically Gmail labels have been converted into tabs. One tab per label. I can get rid of labels now.

ensmotko 13y ago
But there doesn't seem to be an option for custom labels (tabs). You can only choose between Social, Promotion, Updates and Forums at the moment.

Ziomislaw 13y ago

good thing I already started to "delete" myself from google. there are really bent on shooving G+ down ppl's throats.

ensmotko 13y ago
I was really excited about Google Game Services and I've even implemented them into my game, but then I discovered users need a Google+ account (not just a Google account) in order to use high-scores/achievements. Now I'm considering whether or not to actually publish the version of the game with achievements/high-scores...
- Ziomislaw 13y ago
  aren't games on google+ now being deprecated? anyway, I think one logic game there had an internal scoreboard (as it was being published from many other locations) and scoreboard copy was also being pushed to g+.
  - ensmotko 13y ago
    Yes, google+ games are being deprecated. But Google Game Services is something very different, it's an API that makes it easy for game developers to implement achievements, scoreboards and multiplayer. It turns out that your users need a google+ account to get access to these features, thus making them less awesome as I originally thought.

adventured 13y ago

So they're giving me sub folders ("tabs") for my inbox folder. How very 1999. What Gmail is really doing is adding more layers of complexity. Now they have hard wired folders (inbox, sent, etc), labels (aka custom folders), tabs in the inbox, and importance markers (starred / not). They're making the same mistake that consumed many of Microsoft's email efforts: adding complexity thinking that's how you add 'power controls' and make it easier to sort mail.

aiiane 13y ago
not forced to use it. What would you rather they add?
- adventured 13y ago
  Who said I want them to 'add' anything? They can make it possible for me to easily search a trillion pages online from one input box, with a great hit ratio for what I'm actually looking for. But they need to add comical layers of complexity - none of which is new or unique - just to sort my email? It's depressing if that's the best their Gmail team can do. These 'features' have been done before by other companies and other services, and they didn't solve the sorting problem of email. They're just repeating mistakes other companies made many years ago. There's nothing special about sub folders for an inbox folder, even if you call it a tab. I would argue that Google needs to think originally again about email, as they did when they first came up with Gmail, and not repeat the poor product choices made by other email products and services.
  - hnriot 13y ago
    the same old whining. If you don't like the new features, the blog clearly says you can choose not to use them, they provide backward compatibility. You say this has been done before, what hasn't. You should live with the features for a while before jumping to immediately trashing them without even having used them. Nothing is "new or unique" - and nobody wants that either. They want steady improvements without losing familiarity.

moskie 13y ago

It's not available to me yet, so I'm not sure how exactly it works.... but their example pic showing "Promotions" as one of the tabs is pretty disheartening. The post here says it's customizable, so I hope that is not mandatory.

aiiane 13y ago
Can you elaborate on why you feel it's disheartening?
- moskie 13y ago
  It comes off as something being masked as a "feature," when in actuality it is just something that is trying to get me to spend money. It seems like it blurs the line between the "content" of my inbox and advertising.
  - aiiane 13y ago
    I think you misunderstand what that tab is for. It's not a place for Google advertising; it's a place where promotional emails from any site are automatically sorted into - to keep them separate from other useful email. E.g. a clothing website that sends emails about weekly sales - that'll end up under Promotional.
    - moskie 13y ago
      Ok, I see what you're saying. I guess that pic just comes off as being in poor taste in this post then. Because, in reality, those are not the tabs normal people would set up. So I began to question what the point of the feature was. Is it really to help me organize my inbox? Or is it for Google to show me things they want me to spend money on?
      - aiiane 13y ago
        You don't think people would set up a tab to keep all of the noisy "this is what's on sale this week" emails separate if they could?

rayiner 13y ago

Wait, are these categories fixed? If so, more proof that gmail is now made for kids: "We get a lot of different types of email: messages from friends, social notifications, deals and offers, confirmations and receipts, and more." That doesn't remotely begin to describe my inbox, but then again I haven't been in high school for a long time now. Where is the tab for "bills"?

maratd 13y ago
> Where is the tab for "bills"? It's a label you create with a filter that has all the email addresses of your providers, so everything skips your Inbox and gets sorted automatically. Who said GMail has to be designed for engineers? The majority of people have no idea what a filter is and wouldn't be able to figure one out even if you told them where to find it. As long as the features that I need are there, I don't care what fluff they add on top, so long as I can turn it off. And I can turn this off.
ajanuary 13y ago
Bills seem to come under 'Updates'
pnachbaur 13y ago
It sounds like that would fall into the "Updates" category
dannyr 13y ago
If you read the article, it says you can turn off this feature.
RobAtticus 13y ago
Adults don't get messages from friends? Adults don't get deals and offers from Groupon, LivingSocial, or places they've shopped before? Adults don't get confirmations and receipts for things they purchase from Amazon or for flights they're taking? These all seem like things people have in their email regardless of age. Your point seems pretty flimsy.
Jack000 13y ago
Gmail was originally for the power user, but now it's for the masses. Most people don't customize their tools, so these changes fits in well with their pivot to "casual users". Maybe this means opportunities will arise for a newer cooler mail service.

ktf 13y ago

Is this different than folders? Or labels? Is the primary benefit here that these categories are more prominent in the UI?

aiiane 13y ago
Unlike labels, which require fixed rules (or manual action) to place emails into them, the tabs sort emails algorithmically.
- ktf 13y ago
  So I have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about how I want my mail to be filtered rather than manually put my own correct filters in place? Doesn't seem right for me, but I guess I can see the draw for folks who don't want to deal with setting this stuff up themselves. (Which is probably most folks.)
  - khalstvedt 13y ago
    This (incorrect assumptions leading to frustration) is definitely the most troubling thing to me about automagic solutions. I'm currently working on a project that incorporates this idea of sorting email into contexts (http://solnovus.com http://solnovus.com, not much info up as of yet), so we've been thinking a lot about this problem specifically. We are working in user-defined contexts from day one (not all users fit into the 5-context model), but I think incorrect classification is the most important issue to address to minimize user frustration. We are approaching it by treating topic and context membership fuzzily and using graph visualization to aid in traversal of inexact queries. I couldn't agree with you more: there are serious problems with binary membership and "automatic" filtering.
  - cjhopman 13y ago
    Do you find that you often have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about what mail you consider spam?
MitziMoto 13y ago
I don't have it available yet, but if I had to guess I'd say the primary benefit is the algorithms that sort mail into these categories.

bretthopper 13y ago

These comments are pretty sad. I know we feel the need to comment on everything right away these days, but honestly there isn't much to say about this feature until we've actually used it. HN almost universally believes in execution over the idea, yet here we are trashing an idea before seeing the execution. It's great that Gmail is trying to innovate and improve the email experience. Maybe this feature won't work out but how about we try it out first?

owenjones 13y ago
Judging by their recent change of making GChats part of the Google+ Hangout system I am nervous and skeptical about the changes to GMail.
- taigeair 13y ago
  I tried the new hangout box but I'm not able to figure out how to make calls to landlines from the chatbox anymore. Did you guys have that issue?
  - intrazoo 13y ago
    Hangouts does not currently support that, but it is on the way. Hopefully it is soon!
- hadem 13y ago
  Perhaps you'd be happier going back to AOL or Hotmail? I don't understand the negativity around change. If they never changed, people would complain that they are in a rut, that they don't innovate, etc.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    The complaints are not about change in general, but about changes that are simultaneously negative and inescapable. If a new version is better, then great -- but if it is worse and you cannot continue to use the old version, you have every right to complain. I avoid being dependent on web apps for this very reason: I like to be able to downgrade when necessary.

harrisonpowers 13y ago

I'm sure this will help a lot of folks, but I'll keep using my filters and custom inboxes.

bbx 13y ago

The main difference I can see with labels (at least for power users) is that the mails get filtered automatically by Google in these categories. I believe that most of us here on HN won't see this feature as revolutionary but it might help the less tech-savvy ones. For quite some time, I've been happy with GMail because I set up a system through which each email is ultimately stored in one of my predefined labels. I wrote an article about it [1]. It's both simple to setup and easy to use. And although I don't receive that many emails, I believe it can scale quite easily. [1] http://jgthms.com/organized-gmail-inbox.html http://jgthms.com/organized-gmail-inbox.html

ensmotko 13y ago
I actually like the tabs idea, but at the moment I find it useless. If there was an option to show my custom labels (instead of the predefined ones) it would be an awesome addition.
div 13y ago
I have a similar system, but yours does take things a step further. I'll definitely feel like wasting an hour sometime revising my own setup :) That said, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. If the automatic filtering is done well, it will be a killer feature for normal users. From glancing over her shoulder, I know my girlfriend has hundreds, if not thousands of unread mails, most of which would probably end up in the promotions tab. I'm positive this change will make it much easier for her to check her email at a glance.
medell 13y ago
This seems like a natural step in inbox evolution and I can see it being useful for many of my less savvy friends & family. Some recent startups have tried to solve this problem, i.e. my friends at Lightermail: http://www.lightermail.com http://www.lightermail.com
nirvdrum 13y ago
outlook.com has a similar feature, but it seems far less obtrusive and a bit more useful. Having a "Shipping Notifications" category for instance has been really handy. My gut is the outlook.com implementation is more user friendly in general. But I'm happy to see two big email services now competing to add useful features (even if execution might be flawed at times).

mrgreenfur 13y ago

Seems like this is the G+ification of Gmail. All of googles other products (like all the examples shown: g+, zagat, offers, etc) get featured prominently to get more of those sweet, sweet gmail eyeballs. This is the monetization of gmail. Eyeballs directed towards actual paying or ad-supported services, which is a huge advantage.

aiiane 13y ago
Err, what? The labels only sort your existing email. There's no new content involved.

Timothee 13y ago

I find all these new email products (Sparrow, Mailbox, etc.) interesting on a UI/UX level but they're highly irrelevant to me. I always read about how hard it has become to manage one's inbox, but I really don't have a problem with it. My system is simple: do not sign-up for newsletter or notifications (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, etc.) you won't read, unsubscribe anytime you realize you don't read the ones you receive, delete emails you won't ever need again, archive the ones that are nice to keep around but won't require anything from you anytime soon, and use filters whenever possible. So in the end, I don't receive that many emails per day. I certainly don't receive any promotions in the mail… that's just asking for trouble. Right now I have 25 threads in my inbox and the vast majority of them I keep around because they have pictures I want to save in iPhoto but haven't had time to. (I need to find a system for that actually)

nwh 13y ago
It's almost impossible to /avoid/ getting signed up for a pile of "newsletter" spam. Pretty much everybody that has access to my email address floods me with them.
- lallysingh 13y ago
  Keep hitting the 'unsubscribe' links. For those that don't work, put in a filter to auto-delete before you see them.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    Or you can just mark as spam. Most of those "newsletters" and advertisements follow a pattern that is easy for Bayesian filters to recognize (I speak from experience). Your spam filter has been trained enough when it preemptively removes such mail from your inbox.
- blktiger 13y ago
  I used to think that way. Then I started actually using the unsubscribe links and (surprise!) I found that I stopped getting so much junk. I don't really have to hit unsubscribe very much anymore, just whenever my name gets added by some new service I signed up for.

dannyr 13y ago

"If the new inbox isn't quite your style, you can simply switch off all optional tabs to go back to classic view, or switch to any of your other favorite inbox types." If this new Gmail feature doesn't suit you, you can TURN IT OFF.

Kayaki 13y ago
I just hope they don't retire the "classic" view over time, like they are doing it to the classic compose interface.
fennecfoxen 13y ago
To be fair, that would be an advantage this feature has over ALL THE OTHER OBNOXIOUS FEATURES they've done to mangle the layout over the past N years - features that you could postpone but not avoid. cough New Compose coughcough
Karunamon 13y ago
Problem is, if it's anything like usual Google features, it follows a common path: New feature announced --> Deployed to @gmail users -- Deployed to Apps users --> Old feature deprecated --> old feature removed Google has a feature of eventually forcing people onto bad UI layouts.. for example Youtube.
- piyush_soni 13y ago
  But you still stick to it, so it doesn't show up in numbers to them - otherwise they'll change it back to what more people liked - or may be it already is that way?
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    Most of my (and I imagine a good chunk of this site's readership) access to GMail is handled through IMAP, for one. For two, I struggle to think of a UI cockup of an email app on the level required to drive people to switch ecosystems.

ziko 13y ago

People who want their email under control already have something similar - for instance, I have filters and labels and folders for Newsletters and offers, one for Family and friends, University and so on. People who haven't taken control of their inbox yet won't be bothered to do that now. Loved the music in the video though.

aiiane 13y ago
Which is why the tabs have automatic algorithmic categorization - so that all of the people who don't take the time to set up custom filters and labels still get some automatic organization.

badhairday 13y ago

New day, different way to organize your inbox. What it comes down to is the ability to find a system that works for you and then to keep up with it.

rjv 13y ago

I hope they don't neglect the vertical-split view with this update. It's easily the most productive way to to use Gmail IMO.

adastra 13y ago

Disaster. 1) I just turned it on, and it is not customizable at all. You cannot create custom tabs, and you can't even pick what goes into the tabs they have created. 2) When you turn it on, it disables Gmail's multiple inbox. Multiple inbox is the only thing saving my email from being a complete and utter disaster right now. 3) Judging by how they are forcing the new compose on everyone it is reasonable to expect that they will force us to use this as well. (The new compose screws up at least two workflows for me, btw. For example, sending a form email to several people is now a pain because I have to manually click "edit subject" to remove the "Fwd:"). If they force this on me, it will completely destroy my ability to use gmail. If they want me to leave gmail for good, that would be the way to guarantee it. What a mess.

3JPLW 13y ago
I wish they would have taken more time to better support tabbed browsing instead of implementing their own floating compose windows in javascript. Now they've implemented their own version of tabs. Just support native browser controls, please. People understand them. They're simple. They work. The more stuff they add, the heavier Gmail becomes... and the more of a pain it is to load in multiple real tabs.
- stdbrouw 13y ago
  Show me any big web app that doesn't use tabs at least somewhere. I don't see what the big deal is.
- qu4z-2 13y ago
  I'd like to once again recommend trying the Basic Html view. You can middle-click the compose button (or any link, really) and it opens in a new tab. It's super helpful for keeping multiple emails open to reference while writing a new one (which is what the floaty javascript compose window is supposed to solve, but it doesn't really)
thrownaway2424 13y ago
Gmail previously had 5 types of inbox view. Now it has 6. Feel free to choose the one you like.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

This feature is definitely getting misconstrued. There's been a lab for it for ages (not the new layout, but automatic labelling of these categories) and it works really well. Looks like they're A/B'ing it in (I haven't got the new layout yet), so if you haven't got it yet, enable the smart labels lab and see what you think.

gardarh 13y ago

Looking at my girlfriend's gmail Inbox makes my eyes bleed, it's a mishmash of seemingly irrelevant email, lots of promos or facebook notifications more than half of which is unread. I sometimes find it hard to control myself not to "clean it up". This seems like a perfect addition for her... as for me, I've already setup my filters and am already happy with gmail as is; I don't think this will interfere with that. Seems like a feature designed for the 99% of people who don't frequent HN.

twistedpair 13y ago
Seems like the video and solition was tailored for that crowd. Didn't see any invites to Maker Faire in the video's inbox.
baby 13y ago
I use filters, labels and important extensively but I still get flooded by mails (receive like a hundred spam everyday). I don't know what to do anymore. I'm expecting a lot from this new gmail UI

atsaloli 13y ago

All this advanced functionality and still no sorting by date. :(

chebucto 13y ago
Or by size, though I strongly suspect that is by design, to better make you use up your quota.

shmerl 13y ago

Will this new inbox work with Google Talk or it's Hangout only?

twistedpair 13y ago

Seems like a good way to get the Facebook and other social network spam out of people's in boxes, or at least buried under a tab. A subtle way to combat the G+ competitors and spammers.

ohazi 13y ago

I currently use the "unread first" inbox type, which puts unread messages at the top of my inbox. It seems that these inbox types are an either/or proposition. I can't have unread messages at the top within this "new" inbox, which is a deal-breaker for me.

notahacker 13y ago
If that's the case (I don't have the option to enable the new inbox yet) it's a shame. A combination of tabbed, filtered content and "unread first" would be a sweet spot as I'd quite fancy being able to prioritise unread email by subject matter without being inundated with those promo emails I'm not quite motivated to set "mark as read" or "junk" filters for.

napolux 13y ago

Nobody cares about Google+. And they still put it everywhere.

lucb1e 13y ago
I care and they make it worse. It's becoming more and more like Facebook, more chatty instead of with interesting content. Besides the obvious eternal September, which means more users and is a goal of theirs, they discourage long posts and comments by shortening how much you see of it, and making the expand link less visible. I now consciously make sure it breaks mid-sentence so that people know there's more.
uxwtf 13y ago
Google+ is certainly not a huge success, but they won't step back as far as they can offer it together with other services. Do you imagine Google offering Facebook tab instead?

cpursley 13y ago

Wow, who knew Gmail would copy AOL's Alto mail.

pbiggar 13y ago

The problem that I have, and that many here seem to have, is that as "advanced" users, we've already built a fully-customized system for ourselves. Like when Dropbox came out, and we all had git/svn/cvs versions of the same thing going back years. As a result, any changes are inevitably going to break our workflow. Even changes that are better for the common man cannot be better than our customized system. For example, now it filters social email into the same folder: great, I can ignore it while I'm at work. Except my twitter alerts from my company account. So it breaks. As another example, you apparently can't customize the tabs, and it disables multiple inbox. I spent a few years coming up with the optimum GTD steup for myself in gmail, and it's broken now. I think the solution here is really for people like me to use a different email client. Gmail has become the defacto winner, but there's probably a market in making a different client for tech-savvy, very heavy users, with customizable interactions.

ksixmju 13y ago

So this is for Gmail users that can be bothered to figure out how filters and labels work?

travisp 13y ago
I'm a heavy user of filters and labels, but I've fallen in love with Gmail's smart labels, which seems to be the early beta version of this. Creating and managing more and more filters for every single new sender of email gets to be a pain. Every time a new one comes in, you have to go through multiple steps to create one, and then if you unsubscribe, you have to remember to remove the filter, if you don't want your filter list to just get unmanageable. I find the smart labels do a pretty good job of capturing the main categories I want filtered into particular labels and hidden from my main inbox -- without any extra effort on my part. In my mind, anything that works well and saves me from tedious work is well worth it.

jonahss 13y ago

My browser has a navigation bar and a tab bar, and now my gmail has a navigation bar and a tab bar inside those. This started over a year ago, and has gotten even worse. http://threehuskies.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/why-is-there-a-browser-in-my-browser-j/ http://threehuskies.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/why-is-there-a-...

jrockway 13y ago
How do you plan to archive or delete emails without buttons to do so?

simonsarris 13y ago

Oooh I like this very much, though it looks like I'm not allowed to play with it just yet on my account. Labels and filters solve several Gmail problems but demand too much footwork on my part. I found that my Gmail experience got better when I adopted this credo about two weeks ago: Thou shalt have but one Gmail label, and that label's name shalt be "Needs Reply". Either it can wait, and be there when I specifically look (search) for it, or it needs a reply. I need to know which emails need replies, and I generally need to label them manually. Labels beyond this I view as a distraction. I used to label everything, now I label nothing. The fewer you can use the better, I think. And yet I still want a label or two for all the semi-solicited mail I get. Things that I do not need in my inbox, but ought to be there for my idle perusement: Banana Republic sales, MyHabit "deals", Newegg dailies, Kindle book of the day deals, and so on. And then there are things like Facebook updates. Nice to know, but I'll get to them eventually anyway the next time I open up Facebook, which I look at about as much as my grandmother checks the weather (read: Every hour, and for no reason). If this wants to distill my system for me then I'm ready with open arms. Bigger tabs at the top are way better than a hard-to-parse list on the side. Can't they turn it off for a complainer and roll it out to me?

jonny_eh 13y ago
For emails that need a reply, I just keep those as "marked unread". There's no way I forget about those.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  I star them instead. It's one click/keypress and they don't unstar themselves next time I open them (accidentally or not).
udfalkso 13y ago
I discovered another approach recently that works great. If an email needs a reply, I hit reply and save it as a draft. My drafts is now my one and only email to-do list.
obviouslygreen 13y ago

kevinwmerritt 13y ago

A feature that I wish Gmail would copy from Outlook.com is the ability to auto delete emails after a certain time. I have all email tagged with the intelligent Social updates category delete after three days. I use Gmail and Outlook to manage different email accounts. The Outlook.com inbox has smart categories which are similar to these new Gmail categories/tabs. Instead of tabs across the top like Gmail, Outlook.com has Quick Views on the left hand side which activate the category filter. Hopefully Gmail will allow you to customize what is filtered by their smart categories like Outlook.com does today.

jpdoctor 13y ago

I assume this is about getting Google Promotions better airtime in people's inboxes. One more reason to remove the google flow from your critical path. We always knew there was going to be a time that they needed to please shareholders over users, and that time has come.

vkou 13y ago
This has nothing to do with giving Google Promotions airtime... And everything to do with filtering all promotional material out of the average user's Inbox.

juanpdelat 13y ago

Where is the Call to Phone button?

masonhensley 13y ago
Unfortunately I think they killed it in the Hangouts "update"

bborud 13y ago

Does this mean another two weeks of clicking away popups informing me of new features for every damn Google Apps account I have? Oh great.

mililani 13y ago

I don't know about this new Gmail inbox, but what I do know is that Gmail seems to be getting progressive worse with every iteration. Has anyone seen what they've done to Google Talk and Gmail? Basically, every chat message is now saved in Gmail as a sent message. It's so bad now that my entire Sent folder is cluttered and unusable. I had to resort to Conversations view, which I utterly despise, to make things more readable again. I have a feeling this new Inbox is going to be another iteration of fail.

drjacobs 13y ago

Post doesn't mention how to opt out... -1

brianbreslin 13y ago

first thing that popped into my head after seeing this: Other Inbox. I've had a similar feature for years from them, just tosses things in the OIB/xyz labels/folders. Also how will this work with something like Mailbox app for iphone?

gre 13y ago

Stoners made the Android screenshot.

jedc 13y ago

Disclosure: I work at Google and have been dogfooding this on my personal account for a while. I draw a distinct line between my work e-mail and my personal e-mail. In my work e-mail I have a lot of rules, filters, automatic labels, and use multiple inboxes. I also need to read and deal with most every e-mail I receive. In this inbox I don't (and frankly wouldn't want to) use the new Gmail inbox. Based on many of the threads here on HN, this is the perspective many have in mind. However, for my personal inbox it's been a godsend. The automatic labeling is highly accurate, and where it's not you can correct it and it learns/adapts. I can live in my "primary" inbox and only venture into the other tabs (social, updates, promotions, forums) only when I want to. I used priority inbox, and this is an improvement on that, in my opinion. So while I have a bias here, I've really, really enjoyed having this for at least one of my inboxes. :)

DannyBee 13y ago
FWIW: I feel exactly the same way. I use this on my personal email, and it hasn't gotten anything wrong in months, while successfully moving a lot of the stuff i only want to tangentially care about to where it belongs.

martian 13y ago

I'm excited about this new direction for Gmail. I think their team makes some of the greatest products in the Google ecosystem. But I have to say, reading this on mobile (Chrome for iOS) is next to impossible. The scrolling is all over the place. Thankfully ihackernews has a "view text" mode that makes this more sane.

marcrosoft 13y ago

Hate it. I Also hate the new compose.

techpeace 13y ago

Use Organizer for Gmail from OtherInbox: http://www.otherinbox.com/organizer/ http://www.otherinbox.com/organizer/ It's more customizable, has been learning categorizations for various sender addresses for years, and works with Gmail labeling.

therandomguy 13y ago

This is perfect for me once enabled on "unread on top" view. Currently I have to choose between the two. Is this on the road map?

runn1ng 13y ago

Based on the recent Google Talk changes, I halfway expected cutting support for sending e-mails in and outside of GMail

coin 13y ago

The blogspot article is utterly unusable on the latest iPad 4

tjbiddle 13y ago

Looks interesting - Will probably try it out, but not sure if I'd stick with it. I try to shoot for 0 inbox at all times - So all my emails are either archived or starred for later; I don't categorize outside of that. But, that's why they allow an option to disable it :-)

mzuvella 13y ago

Surprised no one has mentioned that this update puts the squeeze on Sanebox and Boomerang.

certsec 13y ago

This is the first change in a long time which looks promising for Gmail :)

franze 13y ago

kinda hard to trust google on this, after all they announcing this on a webpage that screws up scrolling on modern touch devices...

mherdeg 13y ago

An unrelated bug that seems to have shipped today: you can reliably deny an iOS user access to the Gmail mobile Web application in Safari and also the iOS Gmail application if you send them an e-mail which (1) ends up in their inbox and (2) has an attached .ics calendar invitation. They'll be forcibly logged out & redirected to the auth screen once they load their inbox in mobile view if their inbox contains a message with an .ics invitation file. On the flip side, if you see this behavior, you can log in, search for [in:inbox .ics], select all the results, and choose "archive". Neat bug.

gummydude 13y ago

Google is definitely dropping pre-honeycomb support as all their apps going holo way.

dools 13y ago

And they still won't let me turn off conversation view on mobile ...

guiambros 13y ago

Mine was just enabled (and I use my own domain with Google Apps for Business, so that's a first. Usually I'm the last one to receive beta upgrades). Here's my first impressions: 1. [Primary] tab was very accurate, right off the bat. It detected all personal and important emails properly. And all social updates went to, well, [Social]. 2. [Promotions/Updates]: these two are a bit all over the place. Honestly I don't even understand exactly what they meant by "Promotions", but seems it's "anything that is long, but not personal, and certainly not a simple automatic trigger/trigger". All mixed up. Promos went to Updates, and vice-versa. 3. It also failed to detect several emails from discussion lists and blog posts, that went incorrectly to [Promotions] or [Updates], when it should have gone to [Forums] 4. For now there's no ability to customize the tabs. At all. WYSIWYG. Not even the label. The "+" is just a shortcut to enable/disable one of the 4 additional tabs (besides Primary, that is always visible). Overall, this is clearly a beta version, so it'll be interesting to see how they improve the functionality over the next releases. I'm sure it'll be a nice addition to most types of users (particularly those that have thousands of emails archived - which is not my case). I just wished I could customize the labels right away; it's something so small and ridiculously simple to implement, yet it would allow users to make it personally relevant to them. But considering the OP, this should be coming soon. ps: I can't understand why so many negative comments about an optional feature. At least for now - and likely the next 6-12 months - you'll have the option to simply not use it. And if (when?) they force it down your throat, well, just vote with your money... Oh, wait. Did I just say money?

fffernan 13y ago

So basically folders are cool again?

ZoFreX 13y ago

> In the Gmail for Android 4.0+ and Gmail for iPhone and iPad apps, you'll see your Primary mail when you open the app and you can easily navigate to the other tabs. And if you don't have Android 4.0+, if you enable this feature you won't be able to see half of your emails - because apparently updating apps for older versions of Android is really hard, despite literally everyone except the people that made Android having no problem doing it whatsoever. (note to those not on Android: some of Google's own apps only update in lock step with the Android version, so you can only upgrade your Google Talk app by upgrading your whole O/S - which in practice often means buying a new phone)

nikbackm 13y ago

Hmm, I usually keep at most 10-20 messages in my inbox. Wonder how this scheme will work with that?

epo 13y ago

I use multiple accounts for this kind of filtering, main account, shopping account and throw-away account. On the one hand I see this as the Office-ification of gmail, the accumulation of useless features that add bulk and complexity but not utility. On the other, this is Google's reaction to the phenomenon of people signing up for multiple things from their email account and getting cluttered as a consequence. Not for me but probably of great use to people with lots of social- and shopping- traffic.

davecol 13y ago

It's a poor man's Active Inbox - one of the few Gmail add-ons I can't work without. http://www.activeinboxhq.com/ http://www.activeinboxhq.com/

kh_hk 13y ago

Hate to be the guy that goes offtopic, but the gender and target bias on the ad bothered me. So, girls are all about knitting, dates, having their nails painted and buying shoes? I know they just took some trends (knitting and lindy hop), but I found the ad awkwardly worded. Maybe it's just referring to personal inboxes, or someone that does not know how to keep the inbox clean, or how gmail is supposed to make your day easier, I don't know.

ronaldsvilcins 13y ago

Nice UI!

AYBABTME 13y ago

I've turned it on, it instantly categorized my emails perfectly. Just yesterday I was bitching about having to create filter rules for mailing lists and such. And then today this thing comes up. I'm happy, today is a good day. Unicorns and puppies everywhere!

coreymaass 13y ago

I love the new icons! I've been using gMail in fluid (http://fluidapp.com http://fluidapp.com) and had to dig around for a decent icon. As someone who favors flat design (I know, I know, buzz word), I like the simplicity of the new ones they show at the end of the video.

Thrymr 13y ago

I just enabled this on my personal account, and my first impression is that the categorization is very useful. Sure, it would be nice to have more customization available, but it looks like you can train it to some degree to tailor it somewhat. My main complaint is that it adds yet another set of controls on a cluttered and unintuitive interface that has already been changing recently. The tabs go away when you're looking at an individual email, so you can't go straight from a message in one folder to another category. As far as I can tell, when looking at a message and a new one comes in, you can't tell which category it is in. You only see that is there via an "Inbox (1)" in the sidebar. All in all, I think this is useful, but the overall Gmail UI is still disappointing, and getting busier and less intuitive instead of more helpful.

clausonh 13y ago

Why isn't the navigation persistent?!