14 DAY TRIAL // Gmail is rolling out a feature that should make a lot of people happy even though it's something that probably should have been made available a lot sooner, custom backgrounds.
The new Gmail has been around for more than half a year and, while it's made some serious improvements on the aesthetic department, it was still lacking in choice.
With the ability to upload or choose your own background in Gmail, people should be able to make their inbox a lot more personal.
Gmail now provides two themes that can use custom backgrounds, a Light and a Dark theme.
"Themes have been an important part of Gmail ever since we launched them back in 2008," Google explained.
"Not only do they let you personalize your inbox with fun backgrounds, but they’re also practical, helping you easily differentiate between multiple Gmail inboxes (e.g. work and personal)," it said.
"You can upload your own images directly, select from your Google+ photos or simply paste any image URL. Or, if you don't have a particular image in mind, you can browse our searchable Featured Photos section to find one that speaks to you," it added.
Those that use other Google products, which would mean pretty much everyone, will recognize the photo picker from other places. The most obviously similar feature is custom backgrounds in Google Search, for the Google Homepage, the same options are available there.
A similar picker is used in Google Docs, Blogger and various other Google products. The background image picker in Gmail doesn't offer a link to Google Drive, but most of your photos should be on Google+ Photos/Picasa already.
Still, even with the new background image, there are still plenty of theme customization options that are missing in Gmail. The old Gmail was ugly, but at least you could create fairly unique custom themes with it.
