Recently, Gmail has updated with some functional improvements, at the same time, it killed off few old and rusty features. In a blog post, Gmail has announced the release of 3 new Gmail labs – Automatic Message Translation, Smart Mute and Title Tweaks. The most important addition is Automatic translation, which allows users to translate email messages that are sent or received into the range of languages. This specific feature has got remarkable positive feedbacks from numerous Google Apps for Business users. Thus, Google has pushed the feature to the general Gmail. Just hit on the ‘Translate Message’ button provided in the message’s top header to automatically translate the text. Seems pretty cool, isn’t it?
Photo source: blog.gsmarena.com
First let’s talk about the new and biggest feature – Automatic Message Translation. Google had launched the automatic message translation tool in Gmail Labs in 2009. The automatic message translation experiment became hugely famous and successful, and therefore Google determined to graduate it from Gmail Labs and shift into the real world. Now, the feature can be enabled by default to all users. Any message that is in a foreign language could be translated into a language that you understand through a simple link in the header. If you get regular messages in certain languages, then press the “Always Translate” link so you can always have that message automatically translated. There is also option to disable the feature for individual languages.
Smart Mute is also part of Gmail. Just some of the people know that, there is even an improvement based on the graduation of the Smart Mute lab. This feature will allow you mute threads that don’t interest you anymore. Muting them is very easy, it’s similar to unfollowing the thread – your inbox will be no longer packed with replies you don’t care for.
Another great update is dubbed as Title Tweaks. The Title Tweaks feature alters the title in your browser’s tab in order to inform you that you have new messages. Now the tab description will read “Inbox (9)…” in place of “Gmail – Inbox (9)”. In sum, we can say that it highlights the number of unread messages. It is not a big change, however it is helpful if you have many tabs open in your browser.
Along with these updates, the Gmail team has retired few older and less popular Lab features including Mouse Gestures, Old Snakey, Hide Unread Counts, Move Icon Column, Mail Goggles, Custom Date Formats, Inbox Preview, and SMS in Chat gadget. You should also know that the SMS in Chat lab is not being retired, only the gadget connected with it.
Google Graduates Lab Projects, Including an Auto-Email Translator video from youtube: