14 DAY TRIAL // Google is working on a significant redesign of Gmail, both on the web and on mobile devices. Not only is the site and the apps getting a new look, they're also getting a new smart way of organizing incoming email, an evolution of the Priority Inbox.
Android Police first spotted a brand new Gmail app in a presentation at Google I/O. The app has a new navigation drawer, somewhat similar to the tablet version of the Android app, but more refined.
Google regularly tests new features and products internally, with its employees, before it starts to roll out the updates to regular users.
Because of this, new, unannounced features and products leak out via screenshots Googlers take for completely different purposes.
Later, The Next Web got ahold of a few other screenshots of the new Gmail both on the web and on mobile devices.
Apart from the visual tweaks, but big update are the new email categories. It seems that Gmail will automatically label and sort your email depending on their subject.
Google already does that with the priority inbox and it already automatically labels things like email from Facebook or Twitter, so the new features are just an evolution.
Still, it's a big change. In the new Gmail, important stuff, from your friends, colleagues, generally the people you talk to often ends up in the Primary or Main inbox. Google apparently hasn't settled on a name yet.
Emails from Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and so on ends up in Social. Daily deals, emails from retailers and so on end up in Promotions, or Offers. Bills, flight reservations and so on end up in Notifications or Updates.
Emails from newsgroups and forums end up in Forums. It's likely Google has several more of these categories and that users will see the ones that are relevant to them.
If the feature works in practice, and there's no reason why it shouldn't, it would be a major improvement on the way people handle email, not only in Gmail, but everywhere else.
The new Gmail can be seen about 23 minutes into the video.
