Google has announced that they’ll be bringing a few changes to the Gmail later this month. The changes will be more significant to users with multiple inboxes If you use one single Gmail inbox, then these updates won’t be in effect for you.
Multiple inboxes make it easier to break out important emails and tasks from specific people by making them visible alongside the main inbox in Gmail.
Later this month, actually starting from February 20th, preview pane configurations (to be renamed “reading pane”) in multiple inboxes will no longer be supported. Google will, however, send a notification in the Gmail app to let users with inboxes that feature this configuration of the update.
After 20th this month, the preview pane will be turned off whenever you’re using multiple inboxes. This feature will be available t an inbox type other than multiple inboxes. You can continue using preview pane (i.e. reading pane) by going to Settings > Inbox> Inbox type.
The update once it goes live will have the settings for multiple inboxes moved to the Advanced tab into the Inbox tab alongside other inbox configurations.
You’ll be able to enable or disable the reading pane by clicking the gear icon and selecting Settings > Inbox > Reading Pane.
You can now open mail next to your list of conversations, making mail reading and writing faster while also providing more context with Reading Pane.
Other Changes
Other changes Google is bringing to the Gmail include adding adjustable panels, individual scroll bars for multiple inboxes and collapsible sections.
When the right-side configuration of multiple inboxes is enabled, each inbox will have an individual scroll bar to allow users to scroll in either inbox separately as needed so you can more flexibly navigate your email. In the past, you could only scroll both inboxes at once.
The divider at the right side between the inbox and the multiple inbox sections will become adjustable, allowing users to minimize or maximize each panel according to their preferences.
Google will also introduce a single action toolbar across multiple inboxes to help users take actions across multiple sections much easier and ensure that triage functionality and keyboard shortcuts work consistently.
At the top of each inbox, there is a separate toolbar for each section in the bottom and top configurations, but no toolbar for any of the additional sections for the right-side configuration with the current layout.
In the new layout, there will be one unified toolbar for the whole inbox in all configurations.
These changes will begin rolling out from February 20th and by March 5 available to everyone to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts.
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