New Gmail rolls out to everyone ...

... and you can hide that big sidebar now.

The new desktop Gmail design started rolling out 7-2-22. If you use the default theme, you'll know it has arrived when your entire Gmail interface turns blue. Gmail's new design first entered an opt-in preview in February, and after gathering feedback and fixing a few things, Google is pushing the design out to everyone.

A few things have changed between now and the February preview. The most striking change is the all-blue color scheme. Google's blog post says, "You’ll notice the new navigation now features Material You, our updated, fresh look and feel for your Google apps." "Material You" launched with Android 12 as a color-coordinated theming system that matched your OS color scheme with your wallpaper. There's no color-matching with Gmail's "Material You," though, just the blue color scheme.

Gmail still has a theme system, so you can change the color to whatever you want. Click on the settings gear in the top right and then under the "theme" section, click "view all." The background closest to the old Gmail is the solid "soft gray" background option. To truly match the Old Gmail background, you would want "white," but that's not an option. (You can also pick from your Google Photos collection via a "my photos" link at the bottom. This "theme" screen is also where you can apply Gmail's weirdly hidden dark mode. Just pick the black background option, and everything will switch over to light text on a dark background.

The other change you might want to make involves fixing the biggest complaint with the new Gmail, that new, giant sidebar. Google has long had the strategy of shoving whatever new products it wants to promote into Gmail, and the new Gmail design comes with a big, full-height sidebar featuring only four icons: one for Gmail, two for Google Chat (Google's latest messaging app), and one for Google Meet (Google's version of Zoom meetings). Gmail already has a sidebar, but this new design adds a second sidebar, which feels like a big banner ad for Google's other communication apps. Thankfully, in between the February preview and this on-by-default rollout, Google apparently listened to feedback and added the option to turn off the sidebar.

This new "no-sidebar" option isn't very obvious, but you can kill the Gmail sidebar by turning off Google Chat and Google Meet. Just head to the settings gear, then the "Customize" link under "Chat and Meet." Un-tick both checkboxes, and the sidebar will disappear, allowing you to reclaim a lot of screen real estate. It's strange that New Gmail works this way when Old Gmail put Gmail controls, Google Chat, and Google Meet all in a single, adjustable sidebar, but that's what Google chose to do.

Turning off the two-sidebar layout not only makes new Gmail look a lot more like old Gmail, it also makes the regular Gmail sidebar work the way it used to. With the two-sidebar layout, clicking the hamburger button to collapse the sidebar only shows the app switcher and not any of the Gmail controls, you see links for Google Chat and Google Meet instead of "Inbox," "Stars," "Spam," etc. When you turn off Google Chat and Meet, though, collapsing the Gmail sidebar once again shows Gmail controls inside Gmail.

If you really don't like the new Gmail, you still can, for at least a little while longer, opt out of the new design. Click the settings gear, and you should still see a "Go back to the original view" option. This won't last forever, though, and you'll have to get used to the new Gmail eventually. The original new version was rough, but Google seems to have listened to the complaints about the second sidebar. If you tick the right settings boxes, you'll see that there is no longer much difference between the newer and older versions of Gmail.

Credit: arstechnica.com

Act Fast And You Can Unsend An Email

Our emails aren’t always as well-thought-out, as accurately typed, or as succinct as we would like them to be, and that’s before you consider problems like sending emails without intended attachments and typing the wrong person’s address. If this happens to you often and you’re not familiar with the “undo send” feature, now’s the time to learn.

How to unsend an email in Gmail

A feature called Undo Send is built right into Gmail, and it works without you having to turn it on. Whenever you send a message, you’ll see an Undo link in the bottom left corner of the screen. If you tap on it, you’ll be able to bring your email back as a draft.

You can set the amount of time you’ve got before the email can’t be recovered anymore. From Gmail’s web interface, click the cog icon (top right), then choose See all settings. Go to the General tab and you’ll see an Undo Send drop-down menu. There, you can choose from a time period of five (the default), 10, 20, or 30 seconds. Gmail will apply this choice across the web and mobile.

Emails you bring back will pop back into the compose window and appear as if you’d never sent them. You can save them as drafts while you mull over your response, send them again, or delete them completely.

How to unsend an email in Outlook

The Mail app that comes preinstalled with Windows doesn’t have an undo send feature, but one is available in the free Outlook web client. You can set up a similar feature in the paid-for Outlook desktop app too, but it’s a bit more involved.

On Outlook’s web platform, click the cog icon (top right), choose View all Outlook settings, then Compose and reply. Use the Undo send slider to set up the window of time you’ve got for bringing the message back, from zero to 10 seconds (zero effectively disables the feature).

After you’ve sent a message on the web, click Undo at the bottom. This stops the message from being sent and returns it to draft status.

The desktop version of Outlook doesn’t have a simple undo send feature, but you can set a rule to delay every message you send. From the File tab, click Manage Rules & Alerts, then New Rule. Choose Apply rule on messages I send, then click Next twice, and Yes to confirm. You’ll reach a dialog box where you can click Defer delivery by a number of minutes. Check the box next to this rule, then click the link underneath to set how many minutes the delay should be, you can go from one to 120. Click through the wizard’s remaining screens to set the rule.

Any emails you send from Outlook from then on will sit in the Outbox folder for the specified number of minutes. If you want to cancel a sent message before the delay runs out, you’ll need to drag it back into the Drafts folder.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to undo the sending of emails in the Outlook apps for Android and iOS. If you want to be able to bring back your messages you’ll need to use the website or the desktop application.

Credit: popsci.com