Tag Archives: Gmail

Gmail Q&A: A new way of searching your inbox with Gemini on Android devices

What’s changing

A few months ago, we announced the general availability of Gemini in the side panel of Gmail, which not only allows users to summarize and suggest responses to email threads, but also includes using Gemini in Gmail on web to ask questions and find specific information from emails within your inbox or from your Google Drive files. For example, you can ask Gemini to search your inbox for things like "What was the PO number for my agency?", "How much did the company spend on the last marketing event?", or “Catch me up on the emails about quarterly planning.” 

Today, we’re excited to announce that the Gmail Q&A feature is rolling out now on Android devices and coming soon to iOS. Gmail Q&A offers similar functionality as the side panel on the web. You can ask Gemini questions about your inbox or to do things like find specific details in your emails, show you unread messages, view messages from a specific sender, or summarize emails about a topic in your inbox. 

Gmail Q&A on mobile (Android)



Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why it matters

We are excited to help users supercharge their productivity with the help of Gemini in Gmail. Users now have even more capabilities from Gemini to help users get more done during their day at their desks and now, on the go. 

Getting started

  • Admins: To access Gmail Q&A on Android, users need to have smart features and personalization turned on. Admins can turn on default personalization setting for their users in the Admin console. 
  • End users: Open Gemini in the Gmail app via the black Gemini star at the top right of your app or from a “summarize this email” chip. To start, Gmail Q&A can find information from your inbox. In the future, it will be able to find information from your Drive as well. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Gemini in Gmail.

Rollout pace 


Availability 

Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons: 
  • Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium 
  • Google One AI Premium 

Resources 

Reply to emails in Gmail faster on Android devices

What’s changing 

We’re making it easier to respond to emails in the Gmail app on your Android device with a new quick reply experience. 

Previously, there were only options to Reply, Reply all or Forward a message when in the conversation view of an email on your Gmail app. Upon selecting one of those options, you’d be directed to a full screen compose view to send your reply. 

Starting today, you can reply to emails directly from the bottom of the conversation, without opening a new screen, making it easier to reference the email you’re replying to. We know this new option is best for quick, lightweight responses, so for longer, more formal responses, you can simply expand the text box to access more formatting options. 

respond to emails in the Gmail app on your Android device with a new quick reply experience



Additional details 

This feature will be available on iOS devices later this year. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Using the Gmail app on your Android device, open an email > click into the text box at the bottom > type your reply > tap the send icon. Clicking the “Expand to full screen” icon allows you to switch to the full screen compose view. Visit the Help Center to learn more about replying to messages in Gmail.

Rollout pace 

Workspace Customers: 

Users with personal Google accounts and Workspace Individual Subscribers: 
  • This feature is available now. 

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts 

Resources 

Refine emails faster with updates to Help me write in Gmail

What’s changing 

Building upon our popular Help me write feature in Gmail and the recent launch of the summarization feature in the Gmail mobile app, we’re excited to introduce two new Gemini in Gmail updates to help you draft emails even faster: 
  • A new option for Help me write that polishes emails drafts on web and mobile devices 
  • Help me write and Refine my draft shortcuts on Android and iOS devices 
When using Gemini to refine emails, users can choose from the following options: Formalize, Elaborate and Shorten. We recently added the Polish option to web and mobile, which can effortlessly refine your emails, saving you time. For example, if you enter rough notes into a draft, Gemini can turn the content into a completely formal draft, ready for you to review in one click. 
polish draft using Gemini in Gmail

On mobile, when an email draft is empty, the “Help me write” shortcut now appears in the body of the email and when selected, it will open the full Help me write experience. When 12+ words are present in an email draft, the ​​“Refine my draft” shortcut will be shown below the email content to indicate that there are options available to Polish, Formalize, Elaborate, or Shorten your draft, or Write a new draft. The menu can be triggered simply by swiping right on “Refine my draft”. 

refine my email draft on Gmail using Gemini

Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • The option for Help me write to polish email drafts is available now on web, Android and iOS. 
  • The Help me write and Refine my draft shortcuts are available now on Android and iOS. 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace customers with: 
  • Gemini Business and Enterprise add-on 
  • Gemini Education and Education Premium add-on 
  • Google One AI Premium 

Resources 

Enhancing your productivity on Android devices with new features in Gmail and Google Chat apps

What’s changing

We’re introducing numerous improvements across the Gmail and Google Chat apps on Android foldables and tablets in order to enhance your productivity when using these devices. 

In the Gmail app, you’ll notice a new formatting bar located on the email compose screen. This now includes additional formatting options like the ability to change the font type and make a bulleted list.
additional formatting options in bar



Next, you’ll be able to view a list of helpful keyboard shortcuts in the Gmail app and in the Chat app by pressing “?” when you plug an external keyboard into your Android device. 
list of helpful keyboard shortcuts in the Gmail app and in the Chat app

Lastly, we’re enabling Smart Compose on Android tablets and foldables, a feature originally introduced on Gmail web that intelligently autocompletes your emails. Similar to the mobile experience, Smart Compose suggests text as you type that can be accepted by swiping across the gray text or pressing tab on a physical keyboard. 
Smart Compose on Android tablets and foldables



Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts 

Resources 

Gemini in the side panel of Gmail is rolling out now

What’s changing

In addition to the recent announcement of Gemini in the side panel of Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Drive, we’re excited to introduce the general availability of Gemini in the Gmail side panel. Built to leverage Google’s most capable models, including the Gemini 1.5 Pro model with a longer context window and more advanced reasoning, you can now use Gemini in Gmail on web to: 
  • Summarize an email thread 
  • Suggest responses to an email thread 
  • Get help drafting an email 
  • Ask questions and find specific information from emails within your inbox or from your Google Drive files 
While Gemini in Gmail will provide proactive prompts to help you get started, you can also ask freeform questions. For example, you can ask Gemini to search your inbox for things like "What was the PO number for my agency?", "How much did the company spend on the last marketing event?", or "When is the next team meeting?". And just like that, you’ll have the information you need to quickly reply without having to ever leave Gmail. 
Gemini in Gmail



Starting today, you can also use Gemini in the Gmail mobile app on Android and iOS to analyze email threads and see a summarized view with the key highlights, just as you can with the side panel on the web. This is useful when you’re on the go, especially because reading through long email threads can be time consuming and even a bit of a challenge on a smaller screen. Additional mobile features like Contextual Smart Reply and Gmail Q&A are coming soon. 

Gemini in Gmail on mobile


Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why you’d use it 

While Gemini in Gmail helps you view, understand and respond to email content, it also connects to other Workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive. For example, let’s say you’re planning a company offsite and get an email from a team member asking for the hotel information so they can book a room. Now you can ask Gemini to look it up from a Google Doc that contains all the offsite details, using a simple “what is the hotel name and sales manager email listed in @Company Offsite 2024.” Then you can easily insert this into your reply to get your team member the help they need. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 

Web: 
Mobile: 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace customers with: 
  • Gemini Business and Enterprise add-on 
  • Gemini Education and Education Premium add-on 
  • Google One AI Premium 

Resources 

Gemini for Google Workspace feature Help me write now available in Spanish and Portuguese

This announcement was part of Google I/O ‘24. Visit the Workspace Blog for more  about new ways to engage with Gemini for Workspace and the Keyword Blog for more ways to stay productive with Gemini for Google Workspace.

What’s changing

Last year, we introduced AI-powered writing features that help you quickly refine existing work or get you started with something new in Google Docs and Gmail using Gemini for Google Workspace. 

Since then, Help me write has assisted numerous users in drafting content for things like emails, blog posts, business proposals, ad copy and so much more. In fact, 70% of Enterprise users who use Help me write in Docs or Gmail end up using Gemini's suggestions. Today, we’re excited to announce this feature is now available in Spanish and Portuguese. 
Help me write in Google Docs using Portuguese
Help me write in Google Docs using Portuguese

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 

Users who write in Spanish and Portuguese can now benefit from AI-powered creation in their own language. 
Help me write in Gmail using Spanish

Help me write in Gmail using Spanish

Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium 
  • Google One AI Premium 

Resources 

Workspace Data Protection rules are now available for Gmail in Beta

What’s changing 

Launching first to beta, we’re introducing data loss prevention rules for Gmail. Data protection rules help admins and security experts build a stronger framework around sensitive data to prevent personal or proprietary information from ending up in the wrong hands. This functionality is already available in Google Chat and Google Drive, and in Gmail you’ll be able to create, implement, and investigate rules in the same manner. 


Admins can create data protection rules to flag sensitive information from using your organization. These rules are applied to outgoing messages sent internally or externally and admins can choose whether all content (including attached files and images), the body of the email, email headers, or subject lines should be scanned. You can configure your rules to look for sensitive text strings, custom detectors, or select predefined detectors. If a message violates a rule, admins can choose to:

  • Block message — the sender will receive a notification about message delivery failure and more information about the policy they violated.
  • Quarantine message — the message will require review and approval by an admin before delivery. If the message is rejected by an admin, the user may receive a notification about it.
  • Audit only — the message is delivered, but it is captured in rule log events for further analysis. This is particularly advantageous because it allows admins to assess the impact of rules before introducing them to your end users.

Data loss prevention for Gmail are available for select Google Workspace customers (see the “Availability” section below) — no additional sign-up is required to use the feature. 

Create data protection policies for Gmail alongside Drive and Chat

Build flexible conditions with selection of predefined and custom detectors of sensitive information

Set up a rule with Audit Only action applied to messages sent outside of organization. The severity level for event logging is set up to ‘Medium’ and alerting via Alert Center is turned on 

Detailed information about the event in the Alert Center

Overview of DLP incidents in the Security Dashboard with further option to investigate audit logs in detail

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users



Why it’s important


In addition to detecting sensitive content, DLP in Gmail offers additional benefits such as:

  • Simplified deployment and data protection policies management with rules for Gmail, Drive and Google Chat unified into the same area and workflow.
  • Advanced detection policies with flexible conditions, wide selection of predefined detectors for global and regional information types, custom detectors (Regular Expressions and word lists), targeting on specific parts of a message (header, subject, body). 
  • Granular configuration of policies scope, defining sender audiences (at domain, OU, and group levels) and recipient audiences (internal, external, both).
  • Actions with various levels of restriction such as block delivery of message (Block), quarantine message for review (Quarantine), and log event for future audit (Audit only).
  • Tools for incident management and investigation such as the Alert Center, Security Dashboard and Security Investigation Tool.



Additional details

How does DLP in Gmail compare to Content Compliance rules?
Content compliance in Gmail does offer similar functionality in that you can create rules to prevent messages that contain specific content from being sent. However, unlike DLP in Gmail, admins have no way to preview the impact of these rules before deploying them broadly.


Further, content compliance offers a variety of features that are better suited for filtering content. For example, you can:
  • Set up a metadata match on a range of IP addresses, and quarantine messages from IP addresses outside of the range.
  • Route messages with content that matches specific text strings or patterns to a specific department, suited the best to process information.


Getting started

  • Admins: 
    • Data loss prevention rules can be configured at the domain, OU, or group level. DLP rules can be enabled in Gmail in the Admin console under Security > Access and data control > Data protection. Visit the Help Center to learn more about controlling sensitive data shared in Gmail.
      • Note that you can modify existing DLP rules for Drive and Chat to also apply to Gmail. 
    • DLP events can be reviewed in the Security Investigation Tool or Security > Alert Center, if alerts are configured in rules.


    • We recommend selecting “Audit only” when you’re setting up a rule. When selected, messages that match the conditions of a rule will be delivered with the detection being logged. This allows you to rest new rules and monitor their performance, or to passively monitor the  environment without interrupting email flow for your users.

    • Note on asynchronous and synchronous scanning: With DLP for Gmail, data protection rules are scanned asynchronously, which means that the message is blocked or quarantined after it leaves the sender’s mailbox and before being dispatched to the recipient. We’re working on the ability to scan data protection rules synchronously when a user hits “Send” in order to notify users about sensitive content before the message leaves their mailbox. 


    • Please share your feedback on this feature with us — this will help us continue to improve the experience as we move through beta and toward general availability. You can share your feedback by selecting the “Send feedback” button located in the bottom left corner of your screen of any data protection related page in the Admin console.


  • End users: When configured by your admins, you’ll be notified if your message contains information that violates a DLP rule

Rollout pace


Availability

Available to Google Workspace:
  • Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade
  • Frontline Standard
  • Cloud Identity Premium customers

Securely migrate existing encrypted messages to Gmail client-side encryption (CSE)

What’s changing 

Beginning today, admins can migrate encrypted emails from other services like Microsoft 365, Microsoft Exchange, or Virtu, to Gmail client-side encryption in the S/MIME format. This enables Google Workspace customers to simplify the migration process by bulk importing sensitive emails as S/MIME messages without compromising their privacy or compliance posture.


Specifically: 
  • S/MIME messages imported from other mail providers are now supported by Gmail CSE 
  • Virtru customers can use our migration utility to encrypt their plain-text archives from Vault or Takeout, and import them as S/MIME messages 
  • Customers can bulk-import any plain-text email archives into Gmail as S/MIME messages

Additional details

The Gmail CSE Migration Utility is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and supports PST & Mbox file formats. 

Getting started 


Rollout pace 

Web & Android: 
  • This feature is available now.
iOS: 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, and Education Plus customers 

Resources 

Create fully customized email campaigns using new layout editor tool

What’s changing

In 2022, we made it easier for you to send professional-looking emails, announcements, newsletters and more with layouts. These are predefined email templates that can be further customized with company or brand color schemes, logos, images, links and more. In 2023, we took this a step further by introducing the ability to customize an existing template, reuse a custom layout in multiple email campaigns, or create a brand new layout from scratch for Workspace Individual subscribers. 


Today, we’re excited to announce that even more users across Google Workspace editions can now create customized email layouts using a new email layout editor that is accessible from the compose screen in Gmail or Google Drive. In the layout editor, you can create a new email layout from scratch or select from a predefined set of email templates, which include images, text elements and buttons. 


You can then fully customize these templates by placing elements such as color schemes, logos, images, footer text and links wherever you’d like. You can also share a layout file directly from the email layout editor using the Share button. Once another user has edit access, they can open the same layout in their Gmail or from Drive and you can collaborate with them in real time. 
Create fully customized email campaigns using new layout editor tool


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why you’d use it 

With Google Workspace, you can create, collaborate and communicate seamlessly across our apps. This new feature is yet another way we are striving to help you do so as you create fully customized announcements, newsletters, and other mass-email campaigns. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • Customized layouts are ON by default at the domain level. You can turn layouts ON or OFF for specific domains, OUs, or groups by going to the admin panel for Gmail. 
    • If you don't want users to use Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and email layouts, but to still use Drive for file management, leave Drive turned ON and turn OFF Docs creation.
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Gmail settings for your users, customizing access policies for different organizational units or groups, and turning Docs creation ON or OFF.
  • End users: If enabled by your admin, visit the Help Center to learn more about using layouts in Gmail and Drive. 
    • Gmail: 
      • You can access custom email layouts in Gmail from the layout icon in your Compose toolbar.

gmail - compose toolbar
      • You can then open the full screen editor from the embedded editor in Gmail using the “Edit in full screen” button in the top-right:

gmail - edit in full screen


    • Drive:
      • You can open an email layout that you have in Drive (an email layout created previously or an email layout shared with you) by double clicking the email layout file in Drive.

email layout in drive
      • Your custom layouts are stored in Drive as a special file type associated with the layouts editor.  You can find email layouts in Drive by searching: “type:email-layouts”
    • You can also access the standalone editor by going to docs.google.com/email-layouts/create?title=newDoc.
    • Mail-merge tags work with email layouts when enabled in Gmail. You can insert mail merge tags in email layouts. Visit the Help Center to learn more about sending personalized emails with mail merge.

Rollout pace 

Embedded layout editor (in Gmail's compose window): 
Full screen editor for email layouts & feature availability via Google Drive: 

Availability

  • Available to Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus and Workspace Individual subscribers 

Resources