The inbox has become a digital battlefield. While new apps like Mailbox have cropped up to help us achieve lofty goals like inbox zero, old standby Gmail has remained largely unchanged. But today, Google introduces a new look for its inbox designed to automatically organize some of that email chaos.
In this new update, Google sorts your emails into up to five categories which appear organized in tabs across the top of your inbox: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. "Primary" is the bulk of what you're actually interested in reading: messages from friends, coworkers, family, and other potentially important contacts. "Social" lumps together your Twitter, Facebook, Quora, and whatever other social network email notifications. Under "Promotions," you've got deals from organizations like OpenTable and Living Social. The "Updates" tab collects things like receipts, online statements, and bills. And lastly, the "Forums" tab houses emails from any forums or listservs you belong to.
You can choose which of the five tabs you want displayed, but unfortunately for now, you can't make custom tabs -- you'll have to stick with folders and labels if you want to organize incoming emails more specifically.
For someone switching from the classic Gmail view, the new layout is a subtle visual change. However, I've been using it a bit and it's already improved my work flow. The tabs make it much easier to sort through "must read" emails efficiently, and batch delete spammy trash you don't really care to keep.
However, Google's algorithmic decisions of what emails from what sender go in which tab is a bit of a mystery. Most of the spam emails that make it past Gmail's spam filters were lumped into Promotions, for example. And some general office-wide emails and notifications from Strava fell under the Updates tab rather than Social or Primary, which prompted me to switch off that tab so as not to accidentally miss any important emails.
If emails are sent to the wrong category though, you can easily drag and drop them to the appropriate one, or set it so that emails from specific senders always funnel into a certain tab.
The Gmail redesign isn't revolutionary. It still looks like Gmail, and if you don't dig the tabbed situation, you don't have to use it. But for someone that hasn't meticulously set rule after rule ensuring emails are automagically sifted into appropriate folders as they arrive, the tabs are a big step towards achieving email sanity. And the update does appear to be an important stepping stone in Google getting more intelligent about understanding the different types of emails we get, and how to classify them, so that future redesigns can make email management even more streamlined and painless.
The new inbox design is rolling out for desktop users over the next few weeks. The new look in the Gmail apps for iOS or Android devices will be updated over the next few weeks, as well.
