Rename Folders and Tags in Google Reader

Google’s motto, at least when it comes to development, is iterate fast and get new features to the user as fast as possible. This makes most updates less than spectacular, be them for Gmail or Google Chrome. Google Reader, the world’s most popular web-based feed reader, has just gotten quite a big update with a new sharing and comments system and other tweaks. Now, just a week later, it’s getting another new feature, the ability to rename folders and tags. It’s not a huge one by any means, but it was one of the most requested for quite a long time.

“Last year we announced that we wanted to hear your wish list for features in Google Reader, and one of most highly requested features was the ability to rename folders and tags. Today we are rolling out this feature with a little bit of Polish help from Krakow,” Google’s Wiktor Gworek posted.

You can rename folders and tags on the settings page of Google Reader. Next to any folder or tag name, there is now a Rename link, which opens up a small dialog enabling users to type in a new one. They don’t have to navigate to the settings page to change the name, they can also do it from the contextual menu next to any folder, as it now features a ‘Rename folder’ entry that brings up the text box.

Most people rarely needed to rename their folders, but, when they did, they were out of luck. The only workaround was creating a new folder and moving all the feeds from one folder to the other, hardly the easiest way of going about things.

“Also, as we announced last week, today we’ve disabled offline access through Gears, and phased out support for older browsers,” the post also read. Google announced that it would be phasing out support for older browsers, IE6, Firefox 1 and 2, and so on. Google is also deprecating Gears company-wide. Now support for the legacy browsers and offline access with Gears has been turned off.