How To Change Display Settings In Gmail

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How to brand Gmail'southward desktop interface infinitely better

Give Gmail a much-needed minimalist makeover — and lookout man your email efficiency soar.

Google's recently revamped Gmail website has a lot of skilful things going for it — but the service'south interface could however employ some serious improvement.

Plainly and uncomplicated, the Gmail desktop site is decorated and cluttered, peculiarly if you've spent whatsoever fourth dimension working with its far more than minimal and aesthetically pleasing Inbox cousin. So now that Inbox is on the fashion out, what'south a discerning email user to do?

Fear non, my friends, for there is hope notwithstanding. Only as you can recreate Inbox'south best features in Gmail — and brand the Gmail Android app a touch more pleasant to utilise — with a teensy flake of attempt, you can skin down Gmail's desktop interface and transform it into a calm and uncluttered heart for email productivity.

Pictures are worth at least 997 words in situations like these, so let me begin by showing you what my own Gmail inbox looks like right at present, in the days since I moved back into it from Inbox and set out to make the transition tolerable:

Gmail Minimalist Interface — (Click image to overstate.)

Quite a change from the default Gmail view, eh? As yous can see, I've stripped away most of the superfluous text and buttons and left only the elements I actually need for my day-to-twenty-four hour period electronic mail management. Some of what I removed is merely straight-upwards clutter — elements like the Google app icon and notification counter, typically in Gmail'southward upper-right corner, and all the terms and policy silliness in the site's footer — while some of it is legitimately functional stuff that I'd just as soon not have on my screen, such equally the giant "Compose" button that ordinarily resides in the site's upper-left area.

Since I nigh e'er apply Gmail's keyboard shortcuts for functions similar composing new messages — which means I just striking the letter "c" whenever I want to write a new e-mail instead of messing with my mouse — the "Compose" push button was completely redundant for me and accomplishing little more than than creating clutter.

So how tin can you become about enhancing your Gmail inbox interface in a similar manner? Let'due south intermission it downwardly.

UPDATE (4/1/xix): If you really want an Inbox-like vibe in Gmail, check out this quick tip for bringing the actual Inbox interface into Gmail (yes, actually — not an April Fools' joke!) — and/or come across how the actual creator of Gmail redesigned Inbox to bring its same minimalist principles into that environment.

Step ane: Brand sure you accept Gmail'southward keyboard shortcuts enabled and configured the way you lot similar

Role of the super-minimalist approach I've created relies on the fact that I use keyboard shortcuts for common Gmail commands, as I mentioned a moment agone. If you're gonna eliminate the on-screen buttons for things similar composing a new message, you lot'll need to showtime be sure you're comfortable using the associated keyboard shortcuts. Otherwise, you'll observe yourself in quite the awkward pickle (and believe you me, "bad-mannered pickle" is not a positive description for anything).

And so kickoff and foremost, confirm that yous have keyboard shortcuts enabled: Go into Gmail'due south settings, roll down the page until you see the "Keyboard shortcuts" choice (inside the "Full general" tab that comes up initially by default), click the button next to "Keyboard shortcuts on," and and so scroll down and click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the folio.

In one case Gmail reloads, you can see a full list of available keyboard shortcuts by pressing Ctrl and ? from anywhere in the site.

If you really desire to get wild, become back into Gmail'due south settings, click the "Advanced" tab at the height, and click the "Enable" button adjacent to "Custom keyboard shortcuts." Once Gmail reloads, go back into the settings again and wait for the new "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab forth the top bar. There, y'all can configure your own custom actions for getting effectually Gmail — including Inbox-similar commands such as "i" for returning to your inbox from anywhere or "ESC" for closing an e-mail and going dorsum to a message list.

Pace ii: Optimize and condense your left side console

Before we get-go stripping abroad interface elements, we need to take a few minutes to clean up some basics. Gmail's hefty new left side panel is a perfect example: In my minimized setup, y'all'll find that the console itself is condensed — meaning you lot see only icons for each nowadays section instead of seeing a meaty column that takes upward tons of space.

This change is easy to reach: Just click the 3-line menu icon in the site'south upper-left corner. That'll lock the console down into a condensed form — something that's a pure proceeds and no loss move, equally the panel still automatically expands and shows its full contents whenever you lot hover your mouse over it, anyhow.

The adjacent affair you might discover about my configuration is that the list of icons in that panel is significantly shorter than what Gmail gives you by default. This is another easy modification to make: Hover your mouse over that panel — and if you come across the discussion "More" at the bottom, click information technology so that all of your labels and categories will be exposed.

(If you have the Hangouts/conversation module still lingering beneath that area, remember almost whether you actually demand it there. If not, get into Gmail'southward settings, click "Chat," and disable it. If yous exercise want to keep it, y'all'll accept to slide the line in a higher place it downward in order to access your total labels and categories list.)

Now, think carefully about which labels or categories you really click on regularly or need to be able to see from your principal inbox view. For me, it came down to a pocket-sized handful of basics: the inbox itself, my snoozed messages, my sent messages, my drafts, my All Post surface area, and then the labels for the reminders and saved articles features I created via my crafty Inbox-to-Gmail feature hacks. (And yes, I realize I could access whatever of that stuff via keyboard shortcuts every bit well, but I've come to appreciate having some of those icons on-screen in that area. Plus, I need to be able to access the fully expanded side panel sometimes, and it makes for a more than visually balanced expect to have at least a handful of icons nowadays in its collapsed form.)

For any labels or categories you decide y'all don't need to come across all the time, click the associated icon, drag it down beneath the "Less" marker, and let go. Gmail should and then move it down into that expanse of the panel.

Once you've done that with all the icons y'all don't need in your main view, click the discussion "Less," say hocus-pocus for skillful measure, and bam: Gmail volition hide the lower part of the panel completely out of sight. At present what you're left with is a condensed and far less distracting list — and whenever you demand to get to something that'due south hidden, all yous accept to do is hover over the side panel and click the "More" command to reveal every label and category available.

Stride 3: Hibernate the new right side panel

Ane more side console to push button out of your hair: that new narrow one on Gmail's right side, with links to open up widget-like versions of Calendar, Proceed, and Tasks. Unless you utilise that all the fourth dimension, click the pocket-size right-facing arrow in the lesser-right corner of the Gmail site. That'll hibernate it and neaten up your interface even more — and whenever y'all want to admission that panel, you lot can just click the left-facing arrow in that same corner to reveal it.

Step four: Think most your display density

Gmail'southward latest incarnation offers a few dissimilar options for display density, and the default setup puts a lot of actress info on your screen by way of the large thumbnails it creates for attachments and other bits of email-independent info.

While that model is actually Inbox-inspired, I find information technology to be a clutter-creating change, personally. Those thumbnails are useful to me on mobile — where the Gmail app doesn't currently offering them, for some reason — simply on the desktop, they're generally just distracting.

If you lot feel the same way and would like to clean up your inbox's look by eliminating those thumbnails, click the gear icon in Gmail's upper-right corner, select "Display density," and try the "Comfortable" view. It'll keep things nicely spaced out just will remove the attachment tiles and give your inbox a more uniform appearance.

Gmail Minimalist Interface Display Density

Stride 5: Work some CSS-modifying magic

All right — now that nosotros have those preliminary fixes out of the way, we'll become to the big part of our effort. The bulk of my Gmail interface enhancements are made possible past a powerful (and free) Chrome extension chosen Stylebot. Stylebot gives you lot a relatively unproblematic mode to modify any website's CSS — a special linguistic communication that controls many aspects of a page's appearance — in order to hide or move elements as you wish.

Now, information technology probably goes without saying, merely you tin can really screw up the way a website looks if you aren't careful with this tool. Only any changes you brand are limited only to your browser, and you can clear them out and start fresh someday with a single click of your friendly neighborhood mouse. So there'southward no real potential for lasting or meaningful damage and no major crusade for business organization.

The easiest way to utilise Stylebot, once it's installed in your browser, is to right-click on any elements you want to change — like the Gmail logo in the site's upper-left corner, for instance — and so select "Stylebot" followed by "Style element" in the carte that appears. That'll pull up the extension's control panel, which has a plethora of options for re-styling the element you've selected.

The selection almost relevant to our purposes here is the "Hibernate" command, located in the "Layout & Visibility" department of the extension'southward command panel. Click that, and you'll encounter the element you've selected magically vanish from the page. (Ooh! Ahh! Etc.)

Other relevant options include margins, which effectively permit you lot to shift an element'due south placement on the folio, and height and width, which can let you shrink an chemical element down in size. As well worth noting are the commands for undoing and for resetting a page and removing all of your style changes. (Disabling or uninstalling the extension will also immediately remove whatever changes you've applied.)

The simpler way: This is a lot to work through and tinker with, I realize — and then if you want to but try using the exact setup I created, I've published my custom Stylebot code here. All you lot have to practice is re-create the code from that page and import information technology into the Stylebot extension on whatever computer where you'd like the modified interface to appear, and it should give you the same interface enhancements you run into in my inbox screenshots. And if you try it out and then decide you don't like it, no biggie: Just use Stylebot's option to reset the Gmail page — or disable or uninstall the extension entirely.

[UPDATE: Information technology appears that Google changes Gmail's styling parameters fairly regularly — peculiarly within the top-of-screen championship bar — and as a result, the fixes I put together are no longer 100 percent effective. They practice, however, still eliminate much of the ataxia and piece of work as illustrated pretty much everywhere except for within that very height bar.]

Step six: Apply some finishing touches

Your inbox is startin' to await pretty darn spiffy, right? We'll only make our way through a couple of quick finishing touches, and and then you'll be all set.

Kickoff, for whatsoever labels yous left visible in your freshly condensed left side panel, consider applying custom colors so they'll (a) look nicer and (2) exist immediately recognize to you at a glance. To practice this, just hover your mouse over each label and click the iii-dot carte icon that appears to its side. Then, hover over "Label color" and select whatsoever color seems most appropriate for each one.

Finally, consider applying a calming theme that'll complement your new inbox aesthetic. Click the gear icon in Gmail's upper-right corner and select (yep, yous guessed information technology) "Themes." I'd suggest scrolling downwardly til you run into the "More than Images" thumbnail and clicking on that; doing and so volition reveal a whole host of lovely photos from which y'all can choose, including the one y'all see in my own inbox screenshots.

The key to making an paradigm work well as an inbox groundwork resides in 2 hands disregarded tools at the lesser of Gmail'due south chief theme-picking box (which you'll run into in one case yous select and apply an prototype). The first, immediately to the left of the "Cancel" button, allows y'all to utilise any amount of blur to your image — something that can go a very long way in making a photograph blend in pleasantly without being overly distracting.

The second, one icon over from there, gives you lot the ability to apply a vignette to your image — which basically makes it darker from the corners moving in. That, too, tin can make a globe of difference in transforming an ordinary image into a perfect and non overly attention-demanding inbox groundwork.

By default, Gmail will usually manner the colors of your various inbox elements to friction match the image you select (much like what nosotros come across on Android, in recent releases). If y'all aren't thrilled with the style things wait, you lot can toggle betwixt a light and dark text background via the tertiary icon on the main theme-picking box (a gray square with a white "A" inside of it).

And with that, my beloved compadre, your Gmail inbox should be looking immaculate. You are primed and set for optimal email direction. All that's left now is to deal with those mountains of dad-gummed letters that keep piling upwards.

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[Android Intelligence videos at Computerworld]

Contributing Editor JR Raphael serves upwardly tasty morsels about the human side of engineering science. Hungry for more? Join him on Twitter or sign up for his weekly newsletter to get fresh tips and insight in your inbox every Friday.