Author Archives: Gmail Blog

Gmailify: The best of Gmail, without an @gmail address

For the last year, you’ve been able to access your email from other providers, like Yahoo! Mail or Outlook.com, in the Gmail app on Android. And we’ve been getting lots of great feedback from those of you that do. Many of you would like more of Gmail’s powerful features, like spam protection and inbox organization, on these accounts—but don’t want to go through the hassle of changing your email address.

We agree. So starting today, if you use Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail/Outlook.com, you now have the option to Gmailify your inbox.

Gmailify links your existing account to Gmail so that you get all the bells and whistles—spam protection, inbox organization and even Google Now cards based on your mail—without having to leave your current address behind.

All you need to do is open the Gmail app, sign in to your email account(s), and enable Gmailify. And of course, you're always in control—so if you ever change your mind, you can unlink your account(s) at any time, and continue to access them through the Gmail app without using Gmailify.

We’re really excited to bring the best of Gmail to more people, and we’re planning to add other email providers to Gmailify in the future.

Source: Gmail Blog


Making email safer for you

It’s Safer Internet Day, and when it comes to the security of your email, we don’t mess around. Gmail has always supported encryption in transit using TLS, and will automatically encrypt your incoming and outgoing emails if it can. We support industry-standard authentication to help combat email impersonation. And there are tons of other security measures running behind the scenes to keep your email safe.

Of course, it takes at least two people to send and receive an email, so it’s really important that other services take similar measures to protect your messages–not just Gmail. Unfortunately, not all email services do. And that’s why, starting this week in Gmail on the web, you’ll see two changes that highlight any affected messages:

1. If you receive a message from, or are about to send a message to, someone whose email service doesn’t support TLS encryption, you’ll see a broken lock icon in the message.

Unencrypted message GIF

2. If you receive a message that can’t be authenticated, you’ll see a question mark in place of the sender’s profile photo, corporate logo, or avatar.

Unauthenticated Avatar Image

Not all affected email will necessarily be dangerous. But we encourage you to be extra careful about replying to, or clicking on links in messages that you’re not sure about. And with these updates, you’ll have the tools to make these kinds of decisions.

Source: Gmail Blog


Computer, respond to this email: Introducing Smart Reply in Inbox by Gmail

With the holidays approaching and emails coming in at a furious pace, we can all use a little help. Inbox is already on hand assisting you with the next step, organizing your trips, and even suggesting reminders.

But when you're checking email on the go, it can be cumbersome and time-consuming to reply to all or even some of them. What if there was a way for your inbox to guess which emails can be answered with a short reply, prepare a few responses on your behalf and present them to you, one tap away?

Well, starting later this week, Inbox will do just that with Smart Reply.

smartreply1.gif

Smart Reply suggests up to three responses based on the emails you get. For those emails that only need a quick response, it can take care of the thinking and save precious time spent typing. And for those emails that require a bit more thought, it gives you a jump start so you can respond right away.

smartreply2.gif

There's actually a lot going on behind the scenes to make Smart Reply work. Inbox uses machine learning to recognize emails that need responses and to generate the natural language responses on the fly. If you're interested in how Smart Reply works, including how researchers got machine learning to work on a data set that they never saw, you can read more about it on the Google Research Blog.

And much like how Inbox gets better when you report spam, the responses you choose (or don't choose!) help improve future suggestions. For example, when Smart Reply was tested at Google, a common suggestion in the workplace was "I love you." Thanks to Googler feedback, Smart Reply is now SFW :)

Smart Reply will be rolling out later this week on both Google Play and the App Store in English. If you've got a lot of emails on your plate, now's a great time to try Inbox and get through them faster than ever.

Source: Gmail Blog