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Looks like the latest gmail redesign finally started hitting a lot of accounts over the weekend. the new desktop site changes the 2018 design by turning the top and sides of the web app gray, changing the red highlight to blue, and rounding some of the corners. oh yeah, it also adds a second large sidebar to the left side of the screen. The normal gmail sidebar that shows all the mail sections is still there, but there is now an additional sidebar that is basically an app switcher for other google apps. it’s weird.
The new colors are fine, but gmail supports themes anyway, so the new default layout doesn’t really matter much. but the new “integrated view” and sidebar are likely to cause controversy. you’re on gmail.com to check your email, and now on the side of the screen, there are four new buttons. there is “mail”, which is just gmail. then “chat” and “spaces”, which are both for google’s latest messaging service, google chat. then there’s a button for google meet, google’s zoom competitor.
that’s it. a vertical bar from top to bottom to show four measly buttons (five if you count the returning hamburger button) and then a desolate Siberian desert of blanks. oh, if you get an incoming google chat, you’ll see a profile picture pop up in the abyss at the bottom of the new sidebar. this is a huge waste of space for buttons that are irrelevant if you visit gmail to, you know, use gmail.
Critically, you can’t collapse the new sidebar, even if you plan on never using Google Chat and Meet while you’re trying to check email. The hamburger button in the top left corner looks like it might collapse the new sidebar, but it collapses the Gmail sections instead, not the app switcher. You can never make the app bar go away in the new Gmail design. Historically, you’ve been able to head to the Gmail settings and turn off Google Chat and Meet individually, but flipping the switch on either one of those services kicks you out of the new Gmail design and into Gmail Classic. That’s going to be a problem in the future when the “classic” design goes away.
The lack of control is what really makes this app switcher a terrible addition to gmail. the new sidebar is big, annoying, takes up screen real estate to promote unrelated products, and I can’t get rid of it. it’s basically a banner ad for google chat and meet.
even if you use google chat and google meet, gmail’s new buttons aren’t particularly good. google chat made the inexplicable decision to separate one-on-one chats from group chats (or “spaces” in google chat parlance). just like the mobile app, the new gmail makes the serious mistake of not displaying both sections on the same screen. half of your chats will be in the “chat” section, group chats will be in the “spaces” section and you will have to click to move between them. The old Gmail and the chat.google.com website show all your chats in one stacked sidebar, with group and one-on-one chats still divided into separate sections but displayed on a single screen. the website or the old gmail is a much nicer interface for this reason.
We’ve already run into bugs with Gmail’s new interface. Abner Li at 9to5Google can’t get the new gray color scheme to load properly on his business account, so his Gmail incorrectly displays with an all-white background. For me, the “Meet” tab doesn’t do anything. Nothing happens when I click on it. Even if you could get it to open, apparently there is not much to look at. Meet’s only real functions are “Join a meeting” and “Start a meeting,” and even the dedicated meet.google.com website has next to no interface. All of these sidebar buttons open up giant full-screen interfaces, and what Google Meet plans to do with all that space is unclear.