What are your Gmail for Android pet peeves?
Gmail is one of my most used Android apps for personal and work purposes, but I find it to be less than the best experience.
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My biggest gripe with Gmail for Android is that Google hasn’t done anything new with the user interface for years. The core inbox and message layout remain essentially the same in Material Design, Google Material Theme, and Material You.
The Google Chat and Meet integration hasn’t made a real impact on the email experience unless your company (or group of friends) actually uses the two services. In these scenarios, Gmail has become the “universal” communication app.
2016-17
At some point, it seemed like Google was moving away from navigation drawers and towards bottom bars. I do wonder if this was ever feasible for Gmail, since the navigation bar has proven to be the best solution for providing quick access to folders and labels wherever you are in the app. In any case, the time for the bottom bar redesign was even before this navigation element was adopted into Workspace. (Unless Google wants to give Gmail floating/double bar for example, chat that still looks too busy.)
There’s something to be said for a user interface that remains consistent, especially for something as important as email. Gmail consistency is important, especially given the huge size of its user base. However, this should not come at the expense of trying something new that might help simplify or organize this form of communication.
2019
However, the situation is beginning to change. Last year, Google introduced new features that improved my daily use of Gmail. My favorite example is this Updated Quick Reply design this allows you to easily refer to a previous email while typing your reply. Before this, the response interface remained unchanged for many years. Another thing is how Summary cards become richer and clearer to save you from having to read through an entire email to find or open what’s important.
2024
AI will certainly make new things possible in the areas of auto-organization, summarization, and prioritization, but I think there are a lot of unexpected results before that happens. I would define this category of change as an improvement in quality of life and usability.
Again, the way Gmail looks at messages hasn’t fundamentally changed in the last ten years or so. You get the same three actions in the top right corner, and everything else is housed in a rather long secondary menu. The big question here is whether this UI will be good for today’s tall phones. The controls aren’t particularly accessible and aren’t ideal for one-handed use.
Another area where UI stagnation is actively and negatively impacting Gmail is on tablets and foldable devices. You just get those three buttons despite having plenty of horizontal screen real estate. At the very least, Gmail should put “Move to” and “Edit Labels” actions on the toolbar. Meanwhile, Google is adding a Gemini button, and it looks pretty busy.
Elsewhere, it would be nice if Gmail notifications for Android weren’t limited to just Reply, Archive, or Delete actions. All three are shown by default, although I personally would like “Mark as read”.
Another important thing is to ensure that the functionality of the mobile app and the website are completely consistent, no matter how small the features are. For example, you can’t delete individual messages in a phone app thread. Your only option is to destroy the entire conversation. I’m sure this is more of an edge case, but it’s stupid that a mobile app can’t do everything a website can. It’s actually crazy that nowadays I can only do something by going to my laptop.
There is a need to thoroughly rethink and modernize Gmail’s design for modern mobile devices. When/if this happens, what do you want Google to pay attention to?
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2025-01-03 20:20:35