Lyft reduced their code for UI components by as much as 60% using Jetpack Compose

Learn why Lyft plans to shift entirely to Compose for future feature development

Lyft reduced their code for Ul components by as much as 60% using Jetpack Compose

Lyft, one of the largest ride-sharing companies in the U.S., is practically synonymous with one-tap transportation. Lyft has far outgrown its ride-hailing beginnings to now include everything from delivery services to additional modes of transportation such as bikes and scooters. With more than 50 million downloads on Google Play, Lyft’s engineers are always exploring new ways to streamline the product's features and functionality to improve the user experience.

To keep up with the modern trends in mobile development, multiple teams at Lyft used Jetpack Compose to replace some of their legacy frameworks, reduce boilerplate code, and streamline their workflow. They also used it for feature rollouts and have benefited from the implementation.

Less code, easier UI feature rollouts

Lyft engineers adopted Compose for a UI overhaul and used a plugin framework that allowed developers to break down features into self-contained reusable modules. “Over 90% of all new feature code is now developed in Compose,” said Anton Tananaev, staff Android engineer at Lyft. This is in large part because Compose makes implementing new features a faster—and easier—process for engineers.

Lyft has a unified design across its web and mobile apps as well as a Figma library of components, making it quick and easy to develop new UI features using those building blocks. Lyft's internal UI framework, called Lyft Product Language (LPL), allows them to easily use their unified design system across Android, iOS, and the web. The LPL includes common UI components, like visual elements within the app, and more complex panels and dialogs. To ensure Lyft’s riders and drivers have the best user experience, this design system is implemented individually on each platform. Compose is built with the flexibility to support Material Design, custom design systems, and everything in between, so Lyft was able to easily build these UI components to meet their custom visual requirements. On top of that, using Compose instead of views has dramatically decreased the lines of code required. A button component on the Lyft app has gone from around 800 lines of code across three files plus 17 different XML files down to a single Kotlin file with 300 lines of code. They were able to reduce the lines of code by nearly two-thirds of what was needed with Views!

The team that’s working on the server-driven UI framework at Lyft also adopted Compose. Current systems only support static API response, but one key reason Lyft engineers prefer Compose is because it supports dynamic UI changes from the backend. Compose will automatically detect changes, so no additional client code is required to support dynamic content.

A welcome improvement for engineers

Moving over to Compose allowed Lyft to increase developer productivity and velocity. Not only do developers need to write less code in Compose than with Views, they find it easier to understand and maintain, and faster to ship any needed changes. This translates to more time developing new features for Lyft drivers and riders, and less time fixing old features.

Lyft created their own unidirectional architecture, splitting the aspects of a UI into multiple pieces. That means they can pass the state needed for a UI independently of the actions to perform all while still taking advantage of other technologies used throughout their code like RxJava. Lyft's previous plugin system required several files with a lot of boilerplate code just to create a basic reusable component, but with Compose it can be a single file or even a simple Composable function in some cases.

Developers at Lyft like Compose so much that nearly all new features are being developed in Compose, and they see it as the future of Android. Even in job interviews, Android engineer candidates show excitement at the possibility of using Compose and see it as a key indicator that Lyft is keeping current with modern Android technologies.

Compose is clearly the future of Android development. It requires less code, and it's easier to understand and maintain. Anton Tananaev Staff Android Engineer at Lyft

Migrating to an easier-to-manage codebase

Compose is fully interoperable with Views, so developers can build UI with as much or as little Compose as they’d like. The Lyft team enjoyed using Compose so much, however, that the engineers plan on migrating to Compose for nearly all of their features and are working on a plan to officially deprecate any new XML layouts so they can continue taking advantage of the benefits across the different parts of the app.

“Compose is clearly the future of Android development, so the sooner we transition the better,” said Anton, “It requires less code, and it’s easier to understand and maintain.”

Streamline your feature code with Compose

Learn how you can improve feature coding with Jetpack Compose.

Kubeflow applies to become a CNCF incubating project

Google has pioneered AI and ML and has a history of innovative technology donations to the open source community (e.g. TensorFlow and Jax). Google is also the initial developer and largest contributor to Kubernetes, and brings with it a wealth of experience to the project and its community. Building an ML Platform on our state-of-the-art Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), we have learned best practices from our users, and in 2017, we used that experience to create and open source the Kubeflow project.

In May 2020, with the v1.0 release, Kubeflow reached maturity across a core set of its stable applications. During that year, we also graduated Kubeflow Serving as an independent project, KServe, which is now incubating in Linux Foundation AI & Data.

Today, Kubeflow has developed into an end-to-end, extendable ML platform, with multiple distinct components to address specific stages of the ML lifecycle: model development (Kubeflow Notebooks), model training (Kubeflow Pipelines and Kubeflow Training Operator), model serving (KServe), and automated machine learning (Katib).

The Kubeflow project now has close to 200 contributors from over 30 organizations, and the Kubeflow community has hosted several summits and contributor meetups across the world. The broader Kubeflow ecosystem includes a number distributions across multiple cloud service providers and on-prem environments. Kubeflow’s powerful development experience helps data scientists build, train, and deploy their ML models, enabling enterprise ML operation teams to deploy and scale advanced workflows in a variety of infrastructures.

Google’s application for Kubeflow to become a CNCF incubating project is the next big milestone for the Kubeflow community, and we’re thrilled to see how developers will continue to build and innovate in ML using this project.

What's next? The pull request we’ve opened today to join the CNCF as an incubating project is only the first step. Google and the Kubeflow community will work with the CNCF and their Technical Oversight Committee (TOC), to meet the incubation stage requirements. While the due diligence and eventual TOC decision can take a few months, the Kubeflow project will continue developing and releasing throughout this process.

If Kubeflow is accepted into CNCF, the project’s assets will be transferred to the CNCF, including the source code, trademark, and website, and other collaboration and social media accounts. At Google, we believe that using open source comes with a responsibility to contribute, maintain, and improve those projects. In that spirit, we will continue supporting the Kubeflow project and work with the community towards the next level of innovation.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to Kubeflow over the years! We are excited for what lays ahead for the Kubeflow community.

By Thea Lamkin, Senior Program Manager and Mark Chmarny, Senior Technical Program Manager – Google Open Source

ZEPETO plans to migrate at least 80% of the app’s UI to Jetpack Compose

ZEPETO is a 3D social universe built by NAVER Z with more than 300 million users in over 200 countries. Those users can create unique avatars, foster friendships, and explore virtual realms of their own design. ZEPETO commits itself to creating spaces that prioritize the user’s experience. For its engineers, that meant making the switch to Jetpack Compose, Android’s modern toolkit for building native UI.ZEPETO plans to migrate at least 80% of the app's UI to Jetpack Compose

Embracing Jetpack Compose

ZEPETO was originally designed and developed using Views, Unity and OpenGL, but today 20% of the UI originally written in Views has been rewritten with Jetpack Compose. ZEPETO’s developers began to sequentially integrate the toolkit knowing it would resolve a number of recurring engineering friction points. With the Views system, implementing custom UI with some specific shapes, such as sliders or switches, required implementing the onDraw method with a Canvas. Jetpack Compose allows ZEPETO’s developers to implement these types of UI in Kotlin without needing to implement custom classes, simplifying the process and eliminating the extra steps required.

Cleaning up the codebase

With Jetpack Compose, ZEPETO’s developers rewrote complex UI features. They built a design system that helped organize fonts and sizes in a more intuitive way, improving maintainability, efficiency, and the UX. “Using Compose, we rewrote parts of the app where the UI is relatively complex and various business logics exist, such as the character shop, gift giving, and face decoration,” said Android Developer Hojung Kim. In places like the pager and grid areas of the character shop, Composable functions helped reduce the amount of code by more than 10%.

The ZEPETO team decided to migrate its common dialog components to Compose too. This enabled its engineers to use the desired type of dialog needed throughout all parts of the app. “Each element of the common dialog can now be made into a component, making it possible to create a common dialog, just like assembling a Lego,” said Juhyung Park, Android Developer at ZEPETO. Modularizing the code allowed the engineers to implement commonly used app components much faster than before. By migrating these dialog components, the team was able to clean up 1600+ lines of code, making it much more readable, understandable, and significantly easier to maintain.


Refining the developer experience

Jetpack Compose drastically increased the efficiency of previewing, developing, and implementing UI by allowing developers to reuse and share UI elements. ZEPETO developers have already created more than 230 preview functions to effortlessly test and debug features across the application.

It was also relatively easy for the team to learn how to use Jetpack Compose. “It doesn’t take long for developers familiar with the existing Android View system to reach a level where they can use Compose in actual practice,” said Hojung.

We rewrote the Character Shop feature in Compose. It was much faster to write it in Compose, and we reduced the amount of code by over 10% ≫ Hojung Kim Android developer, ZEPETO

Moving forward with Compose

The ZEPETO team is motivated by Google’s increasing support for Jetpack Compose as it’s clear Compose is a huge priority for Google. They’re excited about how Google is integrating more Android APIs with Compose, and are looking forward to further development of the toolkit.

Several of ZEPETO’s features are now built with Jetpack Compose alongside the graphics built with Unity and OpenGL, such as the character shop, video and photo editors, and dialog components, but the team doesn’t plan to stop there. Given the improvements they’ve seen with development speed, code maintenance, and code reduction, they’ll continue migrating existing screens and building new features with Compose. “In the long run,” finished Hojung, “more than 80% of the UI will be written with Compose,” with the remaining UI and graphics with Unity and OpenGL.


Optimize your app

Learn how you can upgrade your UI development with Jetpack Compose.

How Googlers helped Afghan newcomers seek asylum

Abdul[b874a5]has spent the past two hours filling out paperwork. “Today, I woke up at 7 a.m. because I was so excited,” he says. (He didn’t have to be here for six and half more hours.) “It’s been going really well. The process has been very organized, and everyone is very nice.”

We’re at a legal clinic, which was held at Google’s Pier 57 office in New York on September 20. Staffed by volunteers from Google and Accenture, the goal is to help Afghan newcomers like Abdul fill out Form I-589, a key document in the application for asylum in the United States.

The clinic is being hosted by the CEO Council for Welcome.US, an organization that supports people seeking refuge in the U.S. Earlier this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Accenture CEO Julie Sweet took on the roles of co-chairs, and they’ve stopped by to meet Afghan newcomers and thank the volunteers for their efforts.

Form I-589 is a dozen pages long and includes questions about whether an applicant has experienced threats or mistreatment and fears being harmed if they return to their home country.

So, at a table surrounded by people he’s only just met — including Sundar — 20-year-old Abdul shares his story. He speaks English well, but opts to have a translator present to ensure the details are communicated as accurately as possible.

Together, they explain that in 2021, Abdul, a student and dental assistant in Afghanistan, was approached by members of the Taliban who tried to force him to work for them. They knew he had relatives working for the U.S. government, which made him a target. They threatened to kill him if he didn’t do as they asked. Still, Abdul refused. He searched for safe haven outside of Afghanistan, and arrived in the U.S. when the country airlifted thousands of Afghans out in August last year. Since then, the Taliban has repeatedly interrogated Abdul’s parents about his whereabouts, which has forced his family to move to another district in Afghanistan.

“It was incredibly moving to hear his story,” says Ariel Devine, the Google attorney volunteer helping Abdul capture this information in his application. “Applying for asylum is an overwhelming process to navigate, and lending my legal skills is one way I can provide support. We’re part of welcoming these Afghan newcomers into our country, and showing Abdul there are people invested in his application was a tremendous honor and responsibility.”

People seated at tables with signs that says 'Welcome.US' and 'Human Rights First' in the background.

Volunteers helping Afghan newcomers fill out Form I-589 at Google’s Pier 57 office.

More than 80 people from Google and Accenture volunteered for the legal clinic and participated in a comprehensive training created by partner organization Human Rights First, to familiarize them with the situation in Afghanistan, the asylum application process and special considerations for this community.

“Attorneys are paired with non-attorney volunteers, who can help provide administrative and logistical support, as well as an interpreter,” explains Googler Mistral Myers, one of the lead organizers of the event. “We have newcomers joining in person and virtually on Meet. When the application is completed, it’s dropped off to additional volunteer attorneys in a separate room for an extra review. This allows them to remain unbiased, having never met the applicant, and ensure the information is filled out correctly.”

Sundar, Nazanin, and Anya standing in a group and speaking; Anya is gesturing with her right hand.

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks with Welcome.US leaders, including CEO Nazanin Ash (left) and President and COO Anya McMurray (right).

Then, applicants have their picture taken. On the other side of the room, Googler Thani Chettiyar is snapping passport photos of newcomers, a necessary component for each person on an asylum application.

He shares what brought him here today. “I found out about it on the internal volunteering opportunities site,” he says. “Though I didn’t have to do anything like this, the immigration process was extremely complicated. I wanted to do what I could to help.”

He takes the passport photos on his Pixel and prints them on a compact photo printer. Next to it is a list of typed instructions — and another page full of handwritten ones. “The person who did this in the morning session wrote these out to make the process easier,” Thani says. “It’s complicated — you have to download two different apps — but I figured it out eventually. Did you see the one I took of the baby?”

He points to an adorable photo paperclipped to the top of an application form. A few feet away, the baby is still there — sound asleep in her stroller beside her mom in an area surrounded by children’s toys. The Pier 57 events team had set up the area for kids to play while their parents participated in the legal clinic, getting toys, books and games donated — and even donating some toys from their own children.

A space in a Google office with a couch, a table and chairs for kids with a chalkboard top that's covered in books and toys, two baskets filled with toys, and various toys and children's books scattered across two side tables and the floor.

The play area at the legal clinic.

By the end of the clinic, volunteers had helped 22 Afghan applicants and their families with their asylum applications. “We're hopeful that Welcome.US and Human Rights First can use this clinic partnership as a model to help future newcomers, including those from Ukraine when they arrive on our shores,” Mistral says.

Google.org is continuing to provide support to Welcome.US with funds, volunteers and digital tools. “We’re contributing an additional $250,000 and technical assistance to help Welcome.US build a legal platform to scale much-needed asylum application support to vulnerable new arrivals,” says Google.org Senior Manager Kelsey Ford. “And, we’re already planning to host more virtual legal clinics and hiring fairs where Googlers can volunteer.” Google.org has also contributed 30,000 Pixel devices and 10,000 laptops that are being distributed to resettlement agencies to be given to newcomers.

It’s something that makes you a better Googler, a better team player and better at the work that you do every day.

As Googler Rana Ibrahem reflects on the day at the clinic, she’s proud to have been able to make an impact, especially as a non-attorney: “My parents are Egyptian immigrants, and when they came to New York, they were aided entirely by other regular people just doing their bit.”

Rana’s “bit” was assisting a newcomer with their asylum application virtually. “I knew the Afghan people were resilient, but what I saw so clearly was people who have suffered so much and still have so much hope and courage to fight for their right to live a life of self-determination and freedom,” she says.

The experience has taught her a lot about Google, too. “I recently hit my one-year mark here, and the thing that impressed me the most is that this company really values taking opportunities to give back,” Rana says. “It’s something that makes you a better Googler, a better team player and better at the work that you do every day.”

7 ways to help make better sense of your health information

When I’m sick or someone I care about is sick, one of the first things I do — even as a doctor myself — is seek out more information, whether it’s searching for answers to questions online, making an appointment with a doctor or connecting with others in similar situations. At Google, we’re committed to connecting people in those moments to reliable, easy-to-understand information so they can make more informed health decisions for themselves and others.

For Health Literacy Month in the U.S., here are 7 ways our products and services can help you better find and understand health information.

  1. Quickly access easy-to-understand health information.

Many of us come to the internet first to look for information about different health conditions and symptoms. When you’re looking for this information on Google Search, you’ll find helpful information panels. These information panels are available in a number of countries and provide details on dozens of conditions — from the common cold to headaches and more.

2. Learn more about your source.

When you’re searching for a topic or condition you’re unfamiliar with, you can use Search tools to learn more about the information you see online. Through the About this result tool — accessed by clicking on the three dots next to most results on Search — you can find information like, descriptions of the source, and what others on the web say about a source or topic. With this added context, you can make more informed decisions about the sites you visit and the health information you rely on.

3. Find an appointment with a care provider — and check your in-network options.

Booking a doctor’s appointment can be an overwhelming and complex process because of the different types of appointments available to you. On Google Search, we have updated our experience to make it easier for tens of millions of people who use Search everyday to find local health information. This includes showing appointment availability for some local providers and facilities and giving you search filters and information to help you identify providers who might take your insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Screenshot of Google's appointment availability features

4. Find answers from authoritative health sources.

YouTube has made it easier for people to find reliable information to help answer their health questions. We’ve added health source information panels on videos to help viewers identify videos from authoritative sources, and health content shelves that more effectively highlight videos from these sources when you search for specific health topics. These context cues are aimed at helping people more easily navigate and evaluate authoritative health information.

Screenshots of YouTube's health source information labels

5. Connect with a community that understands your health journey.

If you’re looking for support, empathy or shared experiences related to certain health conditions, YouTube’s new Personal Stories feature makes it easier to connect with others who have similar experiences. This feature elevates stories from those who are sharing their lived experiences relevant to common health conditions like anxiety, depression and cancer.

Screenshot of YouTube Personal Stores feature

6. Understand your health and wellness health information.

Fitbit is designed to give you better and more actionable insights about health and wellness. For example, among its most popular features is Daily Readiness Score that takes multiple inputs — such as sleep patterns, activity levels and heart rate variability — and combines them into one singular number that you can refer to when deciding whether to workout or recover.

Gif of Daily Readiness Score

7. Get to know (and improve) your ZZZs...

Track your sleep habits to understand patterns that might impact your health and wellbeing. With Fitbit, you can track your sleep each night right from the wrist so you can better understand your patterns, track over time, and make changes to improve your sleep. With Fitbit Premium, you can see an even more in-depth analysis of your sleep with the Sleep Profile feature that offers monthly sleep analyses and an associated Sleep Animal that makes your sleep data even easier to interpret. If you use Nest, Sleep Sensing gives you a daily personalized sleep summary along with tailored bedtime schedules and other suggestions that can help you improve your sleep.

  • Sleep Profile landing page
  • Sleep Profile Hedgehog
  • Sleep Profile metrics

We’re committed to connecting people with the tools, voices, and experiences they need to act for themselves and others on their health journey. After all,organizations have an important role to play in helping people understand and use health information.

How Googlers are honoring Hindu Heritage Month

This year, the Hindu chapter of Google's Inter Belief Network (IBN) employee resource group is honoring Hindu Heritage Month and the many important festivals happening this month, including Navaratri (Sept. 26 - Oct. 5), Dussehra (Oct. 5) and Diwali (Oct. 24).

To help bring more awareness to key moments like Diwali, Google Registry partnered withCoHNA, a coalition representing the Hindu community of North America, earlier this year to launch Diwali.day — a secure domain to learn more about the history and traditions surrounding Diwali.

I sat down with fellow members of the IBN Hindu chapter to learn a bit more about their traditions, and how they are celebrating the festive season.

Read Article

Today is the .day

.day, the latest top-level domain extension from Google Registry, helps you bring attention to any important day

Read Article

Your AdSense 2022 holiday checklist

With the peak holiday season just around the corner, let’s make sure your AdSense account and site are ready to make the most of every revenue opportunity.

Get started with our three-step checklist:

Step 1: Know your numbers.

Character reviewing performance

Check your seasonality patterns and data from previous years so you can prepare properly for this year’s peak.

  • Check your data using the Reports section of your AdSense account:
    • See which type of devices brought you the highest earnings. You can get this information by accessing the “Platforms” report in your account.
    • Note which ad formats performed well for you. You can get this information by accessing the “Ad formats” report.
  • Know your audience behavior using Google Analytics and gain insights on your site’s traffic over the past holiday seasons:
    • Landing Pages: This Google Analytics report shows you which part of your site gets the most traffic and which users are most engaged for the longest time (Google Analytics path: Reports/Behavior/Site Content/Landing Pages).
    • Geo: This report highlights traffic from geographical areas in which users exhibit an interest in your site (Google Analytics path: Reports/Audience/Geo/Location).
    • Search Terms: This report shows you the actual queries that people have searched as well as number of unique searches per query.

Step 2: Prepare your inventory.

Maximize demand from advertisers by making sure you utilize all relevant ad formats and provide all viewable ad placements.

Laptop tablet and mobile phone settings
  • Add more ad units. Make sure you’re adding more ads to let more advertisers compete for placements on your site during the holiday season. As always, make sure you stay inline with the AdSense policies.
  • Try new formats with Auto ads. As seasonal demand peaks, make sure all your ad formats and placements are available. Enable all Auto ads formats, especially AdSense’s best-performing ad format, Vignette. Also, check you’ve turned on the “wide screen.” control in your Auto ads settings for both anchor and vignette ads. Here’s how to turn on Auto ads.
  • Automate the optimization of your ad format settings. Let Google run optimization experiments for you with Auto optimize. This lets you test different ad settings combinations and automatically apply improvements aimed at increasing revenue. High holiday traffic levels also mean your experiments can run faster, and your revenue boost kicks in sooner.
  • Experiment with Labs. AdSense Labs are experimental features that aren't yet ready to be rolled out to all publishers. Simply switch them on or off, whenever you like. Labs can be anything from brand-new formats to experimental features. We only show Labs if we determine that they're applicable to your site. If you're interested in trying out a Lab, we recommend you check your Labs page regularly.
  • Got games on your site? Sign up for the new H5 Games Ads Beta solution. It’s a new AdSense product that lets you grow your earnings by showing ads in your HTML5 games. It allows you to integrate the Google Ad Placement API into your H5 Games and show ads at the best moments for your users. Sign up for the beta on our website.

Step 3: Enable the competition.

Make sure you allow more advertisers to compete for your ad units.

Toggle to enable competing demand sources

Source: Inside AdSense


Your AdSense 2022 holiday checklist

With the peak holiday season just around the corner, let’s make sure your AdSense account and site are ready to make the most of every revenue opportunity.

Get started with our three-step checklist:

Step 1: Know your numbers.

Character reviewing performance

Check your seasonality patterns and data from previous years so you can prepare properly for this year’s peak.

  • Check your data using the Reports section of your AdSense account:
    • See which type of devices brought you the highest earnings. You can get this information by accessing the “Platforms” report in your account.
    • Note which ad formats performed well for you. You can get this information by accessing the “Ad formats” report.
  • Know your audience behavior using Google Analytics and gain insights on your site’s traffic over the past holiday seasons:
    • Landing Pages: This Google Analytics report shows you which part of your site gets the most traffic and which users are most engaged for the longest time (Google Analytics path: Reports/Behavior/Site Content/Landing Pages).
    • Geo: This report highlights traffic from geographical areas in which users exhibit an interest in your site (Google Analytics path: Reports/Audience/Geo/Location).
    • Search Terms: This report shows you the actual queries that people have searched as well as number of unique searches per query.

Step 2: Prepare your inventory.

Maximize demand from advertisers by making sure you utilize all relevant ad formats and provide all viewable ad placements.

Laptop tablet and mobile phone settings
  • Add more ad units. Make sure you’re adding more ads to let more advertisers compete for placements on your site during the holiday season. As always, make sure you stay inline with the AdSense policies.
  • Try new formats with Auto ads. As seasonal demand peaks, make sure all your ad formats and placements are available. Enable all Auto ads formats, especially AdSense’s best-performing ad format, Vignette. Also, check you’ve turned on the “wide screen.” control in your Auto ads settings for both anchor and vignette ads. Here’s how to turn on Auto ads.
  • Automate the optimization of your ad format settings. Let Google run optimization experiments for you with Auto optimize. This lets you test different ad settings combinations and automatically apply improvements aimed at increasing revenue. High holiday traffic levels also mean your experiments can run faster, and your revenue boost kicks in sooner.
  • Experiment with Labs. AdSense Labs are experimental features that aren't yet ready to be rolled out to all publishers. Simply switch them on or off, whenever you like. Labs can be anything from brand-new formats to experimental features. We only show Labs if we determine that they're applicable to your site. If you're interested in trying out a Lab, we recommend you check your Labs page regularly.
  • Got games on your site? Sign up for the new H5 Games Ads Beta solution. It’s a new AdSense product that lets you grow your earnings by showing ads in your HTML5 games. It allows you to integrate the Google Ad Placement API into your H5 Games and show ads at the best moments for your users. Sign up for the beta on our website.

Step 3: Enable the competition.

Make sure you allow more advertisers to compete for your ad units.

Toggle to enable competing demand sources

Source: Inside AdSense


Use built-in mail merge tags like @firstname to personalize multi-send emails

What’s changing

Recently, we made it easier to send individual emails to many recipients with the launch of multi-send in Gmail. Whether you’re organizing a large event or sending a newsletter to customers, multi-send emails look more professional than using mass-BCC. You will also see replies in separate threads, making conversations easier to manage. 


Today, we’re announcing the ability to personalize multi-send emails with mail merge tags like @firstname and @lastname. 


This feature will begin rolling out over the next several weeks beginning today. See the "Rollout" section below for more information. 


Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why it’s important 

You can use mail merge tags to send more personalized and engaging emails to large audiences from web Gmail. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • Turn on multi-send mode: 
      • Multi-send mode must be turned on to use mail merge. Turn on multi-send mode using the button in your Compose toolbar. 
    • Add recipients to your email draft in the “To:” line 
    • Insert mail merge tags: 
      • Type “@” to see a list of available merge tags. 
      • Insert the desired merge tag by pressing Enter or by clicking on the merge tag. 
      • Currently, the available merge tags are @firstname, @lastname, @fullname, and @email. 
    • What recipients will see: 
      • When your email is sent, the first name and last name values will be taken from whatever is saved in Google Contacts (if available). If you added recipients who aren’t in your Google Contacts, mail merge will try to infer the first name and last name based on how the name is formatted. Adding recipients to Contacts is the best way to ensure that they see the correct names in the email they receive. 
      • Visit the Help Center to learn more about mail merge. 
    • Adding custom merge tags:Future releases of this feature will provide support for custom mail merge tags using spreadsheets. 
    • Previewing mail merge emails: Before sending a multi-send email to recipients, you can send a preview to yourself. If your draft has mail merge tags, the test email will show the corresponding values for the first recipient. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Workspace Individual customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Frontline, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Not available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Your Google Fiber Account

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month! While our customers’ security online is a top priority for us all year long, this is a great opportunity to make sure they understand how to protect themselves and their accounts as much as possible.


Here’s the best way to secure your Google Fiber account and how to confirm that it is a real Google Fiber representative you are talking to over chat or on the phone.


Secure from the start

When you first sign up for service with Google Fiber, you will be asked to set up a PIN code. This PIN is the primary means for authenticating your account when you call in to support. Authentication is required for almost any change of service, change in account, or to discuss any details of a past or current bill. You can change this PIN code at your convenience through the online support portal.


If you call into the Google Fiber support center, the customer service representative will ask you to provide your PIN code before they can answer certain questions or make almost any changes to your account.


Being confident in your Google Fiber interactions

There’s a lot out there about scams being run by people who want to compromise your accounts. Here’s how to know that you are talking to Google Fiber and not an imposter:


  • No Google Fiber employee or representative will ever ask you for your credit card number. In order to protect your information, all credit card and billing information is managed by the customer through the Google Fiber online “manage my account” options within their account.

  • Google Fiber support representatives may ask you to confirm your PIN code (see the paragraphs above).

  • You will never be asked for your social security number, bank account number or any other financial information. All billing is done via credit card.

  • You will never be asked to pay for anything with cash, check or any other non-credit card methods.


Your PIN is the key to making sure your account is secure. And now that you know what to look for, we hope you’ll feel even safer online. 


(And in case you missed it last year, please check out our post on making your home WiFi network more secure, yet another way to add an extra layer of safety to your online life.)


Posted by Chris Roosenraad, Head of Security