Gmail Gets Tabs for Mail

Gmail Gets Tabs for Mail

Gmail has made its chat and rooms feature available to all of its users. This feature was already available to its business users and Google will now make the integrated workspace feature available to personal account holders as well. Google doesn’t want users to switch between multiple tabs to use its services, so Gmail now has four new tabs so all work can ideally be done on one page. The tabs of this integration will be available for web and Android users. There has been no word on when iOS users will get the feature.

Google’s integration for Gmail for all its users was the first reported by 9to5Google. Gadgets 360 was able to independently verify that both the web page and the Android app now display four new tabs: Mail, Chat, Meeting, and Rooms. Chat is where users can message an individual or a small group of Google users. Rooms appear to be a competitor to Slack that caters to a large group of users where they can share files and tasks.

Once a user activates this setting in their accounts, it will be visible in the bottom bar of the Android application. In the Gmail web client, the sidebar with the four sections will appear on the side of the screen by default and can be hidden by clicking the chevron (double arrow icon). The functionality of these new features remains similar to the standalone Google Chat app. Adding these features to Gmail will allow users to remove the dedicated chat app if necessary.

How to activate the new tabs in Gmail

Google has provided the steps on how to activate the new features for the Android app or web client.

On Android, go to Settings> Personal Gmail account> General> Chat (early access)> Give it a try. The app will restart and give a tutorial on how to use the new feature. If you have a separate Google chat app, it will also instruct you to turn off notifications.

On the website, users should go to Settings> All settings> Chat and meeting> Google chat (early access)> Save changes.