Google Inbox has a new bundle called "saved". When you click it, you get this description: "Don't forget the articles, videos and other links you want to get back to. Use the Inbox Chrome extension or mobile share button to add links here."

The Inbox Chrome extension has been launched today and it's only useful for saving links and sharing pages via email.



Now you no longer have to send yourself messages with links to pages you want to read later. The links are added to the inbox and they're also saved as reminders. It's strange that you can't add links from the Google Inbox interface and you have to use a Chrome extension or the share feature from Android.

Another interesting feature groups the messages related to a Google Calendar event. "Inbox now gathers emails from a single event together and shows you what's changed at a glance. When you tap on an event, you'll see a comprehensive overview, all in one place," informs Gmail's blog.


Inbox has a new interface for newsletters, which highlights the articles, so you can open them faster. Apparently, the new interface is only displayed for newsletters you read often and it also includes a preview that's hidden after you've opened the newsletter.


{ Thanks, Allan Medeiros de Azevedo. }

If you're getting a lot of emails and you're tired of writing replies, Google's Inbox service has a feature that suggests 3 short replies. It was first added to the Inbox mobile apps and now it's available in the desktop site. Apparently, 10% of all the replies on mobile already use Smart Reply.


Smart Reply uses machine learning to figure out if a short reply is appropriate and then predicts likely responses. "The Smart Reply System is built on a pair of recurrent neural networks, one used to encode the incoming email and one to predict possible responses. The encoding network consumes the words of the incoming email one at a time, and produces a vector (a list of numbers). The second network starts from this thought vector and synthesizes a grammatically correct reply one word at a time, like it's typing it out. Amazingly, the detailed operation of each network is entirely learned, just by training the model to predict likely responses."

{ Thanks, Jonah Langlieb. }

I've always wondered why Gmail doesn't sort search results by relevance, just like Google Search. Gmail sorts results by date, so you can quickly find recent messages that match your query, and that's pretty useful, but sometimes you want to find an old email from a friend or a long-forgotten conversation about modern architecture.

Now Inbox search works a lot like Google Search. Google autocompletes your query and shows results as you type. There's also a "top results" section that shows the most relevant 5 results for your query. It's not perfect and it's easy to see why this doesn't replace the standard "sort by date": ranking email conversations is harder than ranking web pages. There are no links between messages, many messages are pretty short and are only important for a short while.


In addition to top results, Inbox also shows quick answers extracted from your messages. "Now when you're searching for a frequent flyer number or shipping status, Inbox will show it at the top of search results – no more digging through individual emails to find what you're looking for."


Quick answers are very big in the desktop site:

Google Inbox has a new attachment picker. When you compose a new message and click the paperclip icon, Google now shows a list of recently received attachments, a list of recently sent attachments and the latest photos uploaded to Google Photos. Click "show more" to see the rest of the attachments and photos. You can also select files from your computer. Unfortunately, there's no Google Drive integration yet.

"Inbox by Gmail on the web now makes it easier to share memories with instant access to recent photos and attachments," informs Google.


{ Thanks, Jonah Langlieb. }

Ever wanted to quickly switch between Gmail and Inbox? You can add Inbox to Google's app launcher: just go to inbox.google.com, click the grid icon at the top of the page and then click "add a shortcut". Drag and drop the icon to change its position.


I placed the Inbox shortcut next to Gmail's shortcut.


Inbox has a setting that lets you redirect Gmail to inbox.google.com, just in case you want to switch to Inbox.

I'm not sure if this is new, but I've noticed that Google now promotes the Inbox app when opening Gmail in the mobile browser. "Get Inbox by Gmail, a new email app from the Gmail team," suggests the interstitial page, which still lets you "go to the mobile Gmail site".

Here's a screenshot from an iPad:


And another screenshot from a Nexus 5:


Google used to promote the Gmail app.

If you like Google Inbox and you're wondering why it doesn't replace Gmail, there's a setting that redirects Gmail to Inbox. Just go to Inbox, open the settings box, switch to the "Other" tab, enable "Redirect Gmail to inbox.google.com" and click "Done". The next time you type mail.google.com, gmail.com or click on a Gmail shortcut or bookmark, you'll be sent to inbox.google.com.


You can still open Gmail: just click the new "Gmail" menu item, which is placed below "Contacts" in Inbox's sidebar. The URL that temporarily disables redirects is https://mail.google.com/mail/?ibxr=0.


"If you often go to Gmail in your web browser when you really mean to go to Inbox, you can turn on a setting so that you'll automatically be taken to Inbox when you visit gmail.com or mail.google.com on a computer. You can always get back to Gmail using a simple link in Inbox," informs Google. The setting was added a few weeks ago.

Gmail changed the text that's displayed when you don't have any message in your inbox. Now Gmail promotes Google Inbox: "No new mail! Want to hit inbox zero more often? Try our new app, Inbox by Gmail."


So why can you hit inbox zero more often if you use Google Inbox? You can snooze emails until you're ready to deal with them, you can open attachments, watch videos, open news articles and read important information extracted from a message without having to open it. For example, Google Inbox shows flight status next to flight reservation emails and package tracking links next to order updates from Amazon or other shopping sites.

{ Thanks, Ryan Goldstein. }

It's not like it was hard to get an invitation for Google Inbox, but now you no longer need one. Google Inbox is available for everyone.

Google also added some new features to the services. Trip Bundles group all the emails about a trip and show important details like flight times.


Undo Send is now available in Google Inbox and it also works on mobile devices. If you change your mind after sending an email, you can click or tap "Undo" and Google no longer sends it.


Google Inbox now lets you make "Delete" the default swiping action instead of "Mark as done". There's also a setting for custom signatures.


Google Keep reminders will appear in the inbox and Google will suggest creating reminders for messages that include to-dos.

When Google Inbox launched, many people wondered why it doesn't have a contact manager. Now that Google Contacts has a new preview version powered by Material Design, Google Inbox's desktop site added a Contacts link to the sidebar. It only opens Google Contacts in a new tab, but it's still useful.


{ Thanks, Paolo Amoroso. }

Google Inbox now supports more devices and more browsers. Mobile apps are now optimized for tablets (iPads and Android tablets) and you can use Google Inbox in Firefox and Safari for desktop computers.


You can install the iOS app or the Android app to use Google Inbox on a mobile device. For now, Google Inbox doesn't support mobile browsers.


Inbox no longer requires Chrome for desktop. In addition to Chrome, Inbox now supports Firefox and Safari. For some reason, Internet Explorer is still not supported. Here's the error message displayed by Inbox: "Oops, your browser is not yet supported. Inbox works best on Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. More browsers coming soon."


There's also an error message for old versions of supported browsers: "It's been a while since your browser was last updated. Please upgrade to the latest version to continue using Inbox."


"If you aren't using Inbox yet, now's a perfect time to jump in. Email inbox@google.com to request an invite and we'll email you as soon as more invites are available," informs Google.

Gmail now promotes Google Inbox. If Inbox is enabled for your account, you might see this message in Chrome: "Good news – Inbox by Gmail is enabled for this account. To use it on the web, go to inbox.google.com. You can always use Gmail at mail.google.com."


Gmail also shows a promotional link for Google Inbox at the bottom of the page: "Take me to Inbox".


If you click "x", Gmail hides the link and shows this message: "You dismissed the Inbox link." Click "Don't show this again" to permanently hide the Inbox link.

When Google launched Inbox, many people wondered why it's a new product and not a Gmail upgrade. Jason Cornwell, a member of the Google Inbox team, answered this question in a Reddit AMA:

The way people use email has changed a huge amount since we launched Gmail. With Inbox, we took a step back and did a lot of research into how most people are using email today. What we found was that email works as a todo list for many people, that phone usage is starting to eclipse desktop usage, and that many people have negative feelings towards email because it feels like so much work. We built Inbox as a separate product because we didn’t feel like we could solve those problems by just adding more features on to Gmail. We needed to start from scratch to build a tool that really helps you stay on top of your life.

In many ways, Inbox is a simplified mail service optimized for mobile. It surfaces important information, helps you get things done and organizes your messages. It also goes beyond email. "Inbox allows you to create your own reminders, which really allows it to function as a true to-do list that reflects your own priorities, and offers assists to help you get things done. Inbox goes a lot farther into personal assistant territory and helps you stay on top of the things that matter. We see Inbox as a tool for managing your life, not just your mail," says Jason Cornwell.

Will Inbox replace Gmail? Here's Jason's answer:

In the short term, no. In the very long term, we hope so. Inbox is something new - that's why we’re launching it as a separate product. We care deeply about Gmail and Gmail users, but in the long run as we add more features to Inbox and respond to user feedback we hope that everyone will want to use Inbox instead of Gmail. Ultimately, our users will decide.

Reinventing email is not an easy task, especially when you have a successful service like Gmail. 10 years after creating Gmail, Google is back at work to bring "an inbox that works for you". The new service is called Inbox by Gmail and it's not just a new interface for Gmail, it's a productivity service that helps you get things done.


"We get more email now than ever, important information is buried inside messages, and our most important tasks can slip through the cracks — especially when we're working on our phones. For many of us, dealing with email has become a daily chore that distracts from what we really need to do — rather than helping us get those things done," says Sundar Pichai.

Inbox syncs with your Gmail account and uses all your labels and filters, but adds some new labels that automatically categorize mail: travel, finance, purchases. Google groups messages from the same category into bundles, so you can quickly review them.

There are some new concepts: pinning messages, marking them as done, sweeping messages, highlights, assists, snoozing messages.

* Pin emails you need to get back to: Google moves them to your inbox and they'll stay there even when you mark all the emails as done.

* When you're done with an email, mark it done to move it out of your inbox.

* Sweep marks all unpinned emails in a section as done.

* Snooze emails to remove them from the inbox until later: you can pick a time when they'll be added back to the inbox or you can snooze emails until you you arrive at a place (for example: home).

* Highlights show important content from emails directly in your inbox: images, documents, events, flight information.

* Assists add relevant information like phone numbers, maps, check-in links, package tracking links.




In many ways, pinning replaces starring, mark as done replaces archiving, but they're something new. They're the building blocks of a smarter inbox. You can create reminders and Google adds them to your inbox and sync them with Google Now.

Inbox by Gmail is a work in progress. There's a desktop web app for Chrome and there are mobile apps for Android and iOS/iPhone. You need an invitation to use Inbox, but you can get one by sending an email to inbox@google.com. "Starting today, we're sending out the first round of invitations to give Inbox a try, and each new user will be able to invite their friends," informs Google.


Inbox doesn't replace Gmail yet, it's more like a new take on email for power users. Mobile optimized, context aware and task oriented. Surprisingly, not yet available for Google Apps.