How to cope with the Gmail redesign

April 21, 2012, 3:54 pm

Reports are coming in from around the Internet that the Gmail redesign, which we were previously able to stave off with “revert to the old look temporarily”, is now forcing itself upon us. I too have succumbed to the new design, and have been forced to find ways to cope. Here’s what I did to make it semi-bearable:

Display density: Compact

The default is lousy information density; too much screen real estate wasted in blank pixels. Fix it like this:

Theme: High Contrast

The “High Contrast” theme is Gmail’s grudging admission that its design is too low-contrast. Find it under Settings > Themes:

Importance markers: No markers

I don’t use Priority Inbox, but I do star a lot of messages. They’re right next to each other and they’re exactly the same color, so I have a hard time telling them apart:

You can get rid of the “importance” markers under Settings > Inbox:

Button labels: Text

Here are the new Gmail action buttons. Quick, what does each one do?

I find these icons hard to parse—too minimalist/iconic. (Worse, the buttons only show up when you have a message selected. But there doesn’t seem to be a way around that.)

You can turn the icons into more understandable text labels under Settings > General:

Disable “web clips”

If you didn’t do this years ago, do it now. The new design is hard enough to parse without news links and ads getting in your way, and you can’t even customize web clips anymore, which maybe is Google’s way of saying that even they don’t want you to use them. Besides, when you’re in your inbox, you should be focused and productive, not distracted by random links. Disable web clips under Settings > Web Clips:

Net effect

Here’s a before-and-after showing the net effect of these changes. Before:

After:

YMMV

These tips worked for me; some may not be ideal for you if you manage your email in a different way.

Got tips of your own? Better yet, a tip for a better Gmail client? Leave them in the comments.

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Andrew Lyon

Thanks, this helped out a lot, especially the text vs icons for buttons…the icons are infuriatingly vague.
http://twitter.com/Floris Floris

The before picture looks better, the after picture is usable, and that is where the difference lies.
I like the white, and the whitespace, but I don’t like losing overview and having to basically guess where is what and why it is there.
I don’t use high contrast, and I don’t use compact, but I do not use the defaults either. It’s a personal compromise I guess.
But yes, I completely agree with this article as to how gmail has transformed itself into looking great on screenshots, but being a bit more frustrating to use in real life.
http://mattbriggs.net Matt Briggs

I don’t understand how someone who wants “parsability” would choose the compact theme. spaced lines are much easier to read then a massive blob of text, and data density is a silly argument in the age of scrollwheels.
- Elion
  
  still it is nice to have a lot of messages reachable with an eyeblink instead of scrolling 20 kilometers to look for a message.
  - Tim
    
    Um, search..?
- http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
  
  To each his own; as I said, this is what worked for me. I find the compact setting quite easy to read. But I definitely disagree that data density is unimportant, regardless of scrollability. I want to see as much as possible on the screen, in a glance. Same when I’m coding. That’s why devs like large, high-res monitors.
  - http://mattbriggs.net Matt Briggs
    
    Yeah, to each his own (sorry, that comment came off a little more harsh then I intended). What i should have said was that if you value parsability, then your initial reaction to the padding around the titles may be more that it is different from what you are used to, rather then something bad per se. I would recommend giving it a try for a week or so before turning it off.
    
    When I first used lion, I had a similar reaction to natural scrolling on my mbp. Nowadays I really love it, to the point where I have a hard time using trackpads that have it off.
  - Jason Oches
    
    You have your preferences. I have mine. I disagree with anyone that thinks they should revert the design. I’d argue Google should keep the settings that allow someone to have their preferred view and perhaps make it even clearer. Perhaps provide some method to walk someone through the changes (e.g., a step through wizard).
    - nanette22
      
      Sorry, the changes are understandable: they are just hard to see and read if you don’t have young eyes. I don’t think I’d be so upset a decade ago when my eyes were *merely* nearsighted.
  - Mayson
    
    Why not just go back to basic html?
- http://blurbomat.com/ blurb
  
  Or a spacebar.
Doug

Thank you for this. It is nice to have a guide, so I do not have to search for everything…
http://twitter.com/DevinRhode2 Devin Rhode

#CallingForExtension
- Joel P.
  
  There is at least one:
  http://techably.com/make-gmail-older-look-permanent/4215/
  
  I’d expect it to break every time they tweak GMail but it’s there if you’re so inclined.
Hank Reardon

Downvote for subscribing to the Ayn Rand Institute
mtnrunner2

I never really took to Gmail (v1?) and forward mine to Hotmail (which is my most-used email domain anyway). The interface is somewhat similar to Exchange and works fine day to day.

However, I agree that changing the line spacing in Google lists (including Reader) is critical, and I do the same thing when possible for every interface I use. I wish Blogger’s post list were the same way. The original wide spacing of “Comfortable” contains a bunch of useless space and forces me to scroll too much. A UI shouldn’t make me work extra, it should balance clarity and ease.

I still don’t like the lack of definition (white everywhere) and the fact that a lot of things are invisible until you mouse over them. I find myself mousing all over just to see what shows up. Imagine if the world were a big fuzzy blob, and you couldn’t figure out where to go until you actually went slightly in that direction. It’s not entirely effective.
Joel P.

You are the wind beneath my wings.
http://obscurelyfamous.com Daniel Ha

I actually quite like the new Gmail interface now. I did many of the tweaks that you’ve suggested, but I also use Mailplane which allows me to add custom CSS. So I tweak away until I get something that looks right to me (and it’s not too far off from the new default but way more readable).
Noe

How
Noe

How can they call this theme high contrast when there is less contrast (black text on white background for standard theme VS black text on gray background for high contrast)?
- http://jasonbarone.com/ Jason Barone
  
  You have to see the rest of the interface. It’s MUCH higher contrast throughout the entire app.
http://mikebracco.com/ Mike Bracco

I’d also add a tip to check out the Minimalist Suite http://minimalistsuite.com – It’s Chrome extension for Gmail as well as other Google properties that allows you to customize the UI and remove of things you don’t use. There are many extensions that do this but this is the best IMHO.
Tom Davis

I think you meant to say `yum install mutt` ;)
http://twitter.com/apploverme Applover.me

Did the same things to fix my gmail.. Its stupid that google made this change.. its not very helpful but I guess its free so no issues :)
Beachcap

Thank you so much!! I’m with you, I like the sleeker feel. Makes quick review much easier.
http://twitter.com/badgerhunt Jeremy Mawson

The new interface looks great. The changes prescribed above make it less usable, IMHO.
- http://www.quora.com/Ho-Sheng-Hsiao Ho-Sheng Hsiao
  
  The new interface is unusable for certain display devices in combination with turning up the font size (because I’m getting old and blind).
- James Cape
  
  Yeah, my first thought was “wow, you’ve found a way to make Gmail ugly again”
  - http://ohcheers.com Oh Cheers
    
    Do you really think old Gmail was “ugly”? It’s an email system. An innovative email system that clusters emails on the basis of conversation, but JUST an email system. Gmail never was attractive. Gmail will never be attractive. Gmail USED TO BE highly functional. Gmail is now LESS FUNCTIONAL. Thanks Google! Thanks a bunch! Way to alienate your userbase! On the plus side Gmail has had autoforwarding since day 1 so hopefully changing provider will be relatively pain free…
- http://www.alanataylor.com alanataylor
  
  I agree with Jeremy
  - Asf
    
    I agree with myself.
- Asf
  
  You are blind or work for Google.
  - Jason Oches
    
    Someone has a preference that doesn’t match the authors. Clearly he’s blind or works for Google.
    - joe
      
      its not about preference, its common sense, if something is harder to use but some people think it looks “prettier” this is an improvement? anyway these changes are optional for those of you who are google fanboys or prefer style over usability you are free to keep the wonderful new look, for the rest of us who don’t worship at the google alter these changes make the “new look” somewhat bearable
      - http://ohcheers.com Oh Cheers
        
        I agree with Joe, Asf and the author. This low contrast nonsense IS hard to read and I’ll bet a classic British 20p that Google will concede eventually. I held off as long as possible before the changeover and I’m TRYING to make use of it, but for me (even as a youngster!) the new Gmail is NOT fit for purpose. It is NOT as clear to read, even in UGLY high contrast mode. I don’t know how much CHANG they’re putting up their noses at Google, but they’re MIGHTY arrogant to kill off an otherwise pleasing and satisfactory interface in favour of this cooler-than-thou lameness.
- Mark Smucker
  
  The new design is considerably harder to read for me even under the faux “high contrast” setting. My primary concern is about fonts and colors. Why put my labels inside of dark grey boxes? Might as well make it black text on a black background.Why not provide a theme that matches the old theme? How hard is it to do this?
  
  The “mustard” theme is the most readable for me, but it still is not as good as the old one. I often find myself switching to “basic html” to be able to read my inbox.
webreac

Hello, I have switched to the new interface since a long time, but I have done exactly the same settings as you.
“web clips” was not an option, but I have made a adblock filter to have the same effect.
OrJakub

My biggest issue with the new mail is missing margin on top of the message list so you neverknow whether are on top of the list or not. Gets every time.
Mark Ruggles

I could have written this myself, I am using the exact same settings and customizations as you.

:)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=589015122 Peter A. van Rijswijk

There is A little chrome extension that will help out.
AdBlock+ Element Hiding Helper
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chmimgmjdabgiilljdjfbonifbhiglao

It’s meant to get rid of stubborn ad’s that adbocker’s have trouble with but it will remove
elements from gmail and igoogle or any site for that matter.

You can remove those tabs you don’t want and don’t use play well just remove it from the toolbar ;)
Just play with it as if you make a mistake like remove your whole email list lol

Don’t worry every thing can be undone with a couple of clicks :)

Oh yeah did I mention it blocks ads as well ;) It allows you to subscribe to many popular ad lists (easylist,etc)

BTW works on facebook as well :) But of course who uses that anyways right ;)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=802455037 Reza Daryaei

basic html will give you (some of) the old design back: https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html
- Ronald Buckley
  
  Thanks! My scroll bar would not work in the new version, it does with the basic html.
- AstroPeg
  
  Hey Reza that’s great…. any way to adjust the colors that display with html?
Curt Coleman

Thanks…worked for me, especially changing the icons to text, as I always hesitate and think when selecting one.
Bobby

I think the new gmail contrast is appalling.

This issue of poor contrast, even in the “high contrast” theme has been around for months.

The fact that the new look is being forced on users is yet another “big google” crapola.

Unbelievebale.

Basically, they don’t care otherwise it would be fixed. All they need to do is add a css or color function so that one can change it to how we want it exactly.

I will start to move back over to yahoo…
http://www.quora.com/Ho-Sheng-Hsiao Ho-Sheng Hsiao

You would think with the number of people continually hitting “Revert to Old Design” would trigger a metric somewhere.

I would like the Gmail team to take a cue from the G+ redesign.
- http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
  
  They clearly heard the feedback. That’s why they introduced the density setting and the “high contrast” theme. They know what the problems are. They just don’t want to admit that the new design is inferior, and they don’t want to throw it out. So they fool themselves into thinking that it’s enough to add a few settings, to placate the people who are complaining.
  - Danielsoar
    
    Those things were there from the beginning. For what it’s worth I’ve chosen the “comfortable” setting and will continue to use Priority Inbox, which is a brilliant innovation. I’m with you only on the difficulty of the text-less icons, though my main complaint is that the Android app uses a different icon for archive from the web client.
  - http://twitter.com/richardlusk Richard Lusk
    
    I am not a fan of the new design. Funnily enough, I made the same selections you suggest, BEFORE reading this post.
- Aileen Rodriguez
  
  In addition to all the feedback they probably got as to “why” we don’t like the changes.
Pingback: Making The Best Of The GMail Redesign | As I See It
. mrsdurff

Oh THANK YOU! As soon as I read this, I followed your instructions!
Shouldbe51

Thank you!
theophrastvs

Thank you very much for this! There are several tricks here I didn’t know about. ….still the “new look” change is a disappointment. *why* can’t the massive wonder that is google support both (their old and their sucky new) UIs?
- http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
  
  Supporting two UIs is not a good solution. They should only support one UI. They should just make it better over time, not worse.
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Quickdrawartist

F**k all that, how about a massive petition to get the “old” version back. This reminds me of the “classic coke” debacle.
- http://ohcheers.com Oh Cheers
  
  New Coke vs. Classic Coke would be a neat analogy for leaving otherwise happy users in the cold as we’ve had a lame product foist upon us without our consultation. Otherwise we leave in droves and the strike will hit Google where it hurts – less ad views!
http://about.me/chrisco chrisco

Thanks for this. Now if you can get them to get rid of Buzz (I mean +) and go resume GReader.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1495850904 Luke Allen McManamon

+1 for the Ayn Rand Institute
Nolan Butcher

This is how I cope with the redesign: http://sparrowmailapp.com/mac.php
lucasho

It’s really a matter of preference.
- http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens
  
  Well, that and eyestrain.
Amanda

Thank you so much. This is exceptionally useful.

I’m especially grateful for a way to get rid of the “Importance” markers, which have been plaguing me horribly. Consistently, Gmail marks between 92-98% of my messages as “Important.” Obviously this cannot be true for any rational value of “important.” I have no idea where it is coming up with this rating, but at least now I can turn it off.
- http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
  
  There is a way to “train” the importance markers. If you mark things as “not important”, it will “learn” over time. It may even be very useful for some people—I just decided not to use it, because by the time the feature was introduced I had already come up with other ways to manage email priority. If you like the idea, give it a week or so of “training” (by manually marking things as “important” or “not important”).
  
  In any case, I was happy to simply ignore the importance markers until the redesign. They weren’t easily confused with stars in the old design; now they are. That’s why I finally turned them off.
mlstotts

You are too kind. Thanks for this tutorial. I’ve made almost all the changes you recommend, but I cannot find “high contrast” or “themes” for that matter. I’m a google-apps user – any idea where it is?
- http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
  
  “Themes” should be the last subtab under “Settings”. There’s also a shortcut to it directly from the gear menu (notice it in the first screenshot up top). From there you should see “High Contrast”.
  - mlstotts
    
    Thanks. Looks like our admin disabled themes. All the other tips worked great. They aren’t / don’t seem to sync across browsers though. Used the office computer today and saw that all the icons were back in the email menu rather than text.
  - RebelNC
    
    Thanks for your suggestions, Jason. The new Gmail interface is atrocious as others have mentioned, but your recommended changes make a bad situation better. One feature that Gmail still doesn’t include is the ability to create folders in which to place messages by subject category. Virtually all other email clients have the option of creating folders, but not Gmail. They never have.
    - http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
      
      You can create labels in Gmail. They are basically folders.
Gmelius

You should try Gmelius™, a poly-browser extension that proposes a better and cleaner Gmail™ inbox for Chrome, Firefox and Opera: http://gmelius.com
http://twitter.com/JosephJEsposito Joseph Esposito

Excellent post. I hope Google sees this. Their changes are all bad. It is so hard to read anything in Gmail now. Even the high contrast setting has insufficient setting. Where did anybody get the idea of using a gray background? Use white, please, no gray.
http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

I finally ditched the web interface when I got switched to the new look for the last time and couldn’t switch back. I simply can’t read it without getting a headache, and that’s with the “high contrast” theme (black on medium gray, really? If I were the word “high” or “contrast” I would sue for defamation). It’s all IMAP for me now.
- nanette22
  
  I, too, get a headache from it even with the so-called “high contrast” theme. Will try IMAP.
Bob

I FEAR CHANGE!!!
I like the new Gmail interface. It took me all of about 2 minutes to find my bearings.

Go be old somewhere else. This is the Internet.
- http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
  
  Sheesh.
  
  This isn’t about change. You won’t find me complaining about changes on Facebook, for instance—not even Timeline. This is about change *for the worse*. I think the new design is objectively worse.
  - Tim
    
    Dude you are seriously arrogant. It’s not objectively worse. It has genuine benefits you seem to ignore. Google UI designers have managed to integrate consistency across most of it’s apps. That’s no small feat. And overall usability across docs, gmail, groups, YouTube, search, sites, voice, etc has definitely improved. It’s not perfect. Stop taking yourself so seriously.
    - http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens
      
      ”It’s not objectively worse.”
      
      It absolutely is objectively worse for those of us who now can’t use the web interface at all because it’s literally headache-inducing.
  - http://rehaul.com Lance Haun
    
    “I think” and “objectively” don’t belong in the same sentence. Either it is objectively worse or you simply think it is worse.
    - resnyc
      
      pedantry
      - http://rehaul.com Lance Haun
        
        The irony of calling me out while excusing absolutism in design preference.
  - Aileen Rodriguez
    
    Amen Jason, I have been a computer tech since 1984, so I have seen A LOT of changes, but I have never complained about one like this…
  - http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens
    
    ”not even Timeline”
    
    Wow. You’re kinder than me. Timeline is an unrepentant piece of crap.
- resnyc
  
  everything g is doing now is about delivering ads to the user and delivering the user to g circles.
  
  we who are experienced look forward to the day, not long from now, when you wake up and suddenly think of yourself as “old”.
Rahul dangi

this look were nice. i think that this look of gmail is helpful to our old family members.
Rahul dangi

this look were nice. i think that this look of gmail is helpful to our old family members.
guest

The new design scrolls only the center section and causes multiple scroll bars to appear in the left column when I’ve turned on some lab widgets. Complaining gets no response. I think they botched this one. Pretty lame bunch of designers and interaction people at google these days.
- http://jasoncrawford.org/ jasoncrawford
  
  Yeah, I am also annoyed by the scroll-only-in-the-center behavior.
- consumeralertreporter
  
  Response from Google? That’s the biggest laugh of all. Google does not believe in responding to anyone about anything ever. They think their “brave new world” computer system can figure everything out. I don’t think it can. They can’t even get the basics right, and you can’t tell them about it.
  Hey Ladies Does Google think you’re a guy? http://gigaom.com/2012/01/27/hey-ladies-does-google-think-youre-a-guy/
Abc

Thanks, Google seems to be committed to unpractical ugly designs lately. Any workaround helps.
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skylights

Ayn Rand? Excuse me… BARF
Gsokolova

My new gmail got too annoying to use.
Jason improved my life for time being. I’ll leave gmail at first opportunity.
- Tim
  
  Lol. You are BS ing. Set forward addy and presto you are done.
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Venturaphotography

Any idea how to get my email to scroll again??? I can only see the top maybe 1/3 of my email!!!
- Dave Bell
  
  Scrolling has been a long-running problem with some browsers. I’m not sure what changed when, but Opera was unusable until recently. Whatever browser you use, going to the latest version might be necessary.

Jason Crawford