Computer users, which is to say people who use computation devices for arbitrary tasks, and invent new uses on the fly, are not the majority demographic anymore. We are a 'specialty group.'

The fact this hasn't happened probably says a lot about the situation, both technically and politically.

I wonder sometimes if it is the whole 'agile architecture' thing where one person can decide "Oh we're going to change protocol buffers for this service, I'll just push that out ..." and the collateral damage is far and wide. I used to think people who complained about the poor IMAP implementation were just unwilling to go with the flow, and then had the flow take me down to where most flows go after they have come out of the faucet :-).

The next step in the evolution is 'personal' clouds I think. An Internet appliance that you own that you use for mail and media and what not. Back to the future-past but with a more resilient design. Perhaps that idea will bear fruit, it isn't like its getting better in the "internet clouds."

The second most important thing is the email I am replying to, but the compose window pops up over the top of that obscuring a chunk of it.

I've noticed others doing this as well. They e-mail me without a subject and its context is from a recent chat.

I don't particularly like the UI changes, myself. But then, I'm not... well, to cut it short, I'm increasingly aware that I am not / am no longer Google's target demographic.

With recent innovations I have less and less reason to use dedicated desktop apps. I honestly love every aspect of gmail.

The worst ATM is that desktop clients don't support the multiple inboxes that gmail introduced, so most clients think i have a ton of unread messages. So i wish google would come out with some desktop clients with multiple account support.

Edit: I usually see my email appear in my android app before I even see it in the desktop.

Also, as mentioned below, you can revert to the un-tabbed inbox by going to the Inbox section of the settings and disabling all tabs other than Primary, or by selecting one of the split inboxes (Unread first, Priority, etc).

Disclaimer: I'm a Gmail engineer.

It seems like the new feature is essentially just a way to do automatic (learned?) labeling -- yet it won't let you build your own tabs using already-defined custom labels. :-/

The mistake is making me worry about this shit in the first place.

> Also, as mentioned below, you can revert to the un-tabbed inbox by going to the Inbox section of the settings and disabling all tabs other than Primary, or by selecting one of the split inboxes (Unread first, Priority, etc).

Thank you.

I do not leave crap lying around and then add another management dimension to my Inbox to deal with it.

Plus, it has the added benefit that emails which land in anything but the main inbox don't notify your phone, removing a distraction.

May I contact you with a Google question? I've encountered a technical problem which I would like to report, but I am having trouble finding an appropriate communication channel. The technical problem itself is interfering with my ability to use the typical channels.

If you are willing to help point me in the redirect direction, then please contact me via the info in my profile. (I was hoping to contact you privately, but your profile is blank.)

I won't harass you, and I don't expect support from you personally - I'm just hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction, in terms of how to report the tech problem.

Thank you!

Do you mean "Policy is against giving users any meaningful ability to train their filters, but if Neptune is in the Third House, Gmail might learn from its mistake"?

Thanks.

2. Click the arrow next to the Inbox label. Select your preferred inbox type. http://cl.ly/image/1Z2M0c1z3T1B

Click the gear icon on the right, then click 'Configure Inbox'

Untick every checkbox but Primary, then click Save. It's now saner.

Having all the "promotional" emails I get sent moved to a separate tab where I only have to look at them when I want to has completely tamed my inbox. My primary tab now only has messages that I care about.

I only wish it was implemented in a way that all clients could utilize it. I personally don't use the Gmail iOS client because I have several work inboxes that I want unified with my personal email.

- "Hey I'm most in a sea of spam!"

- "That's what rules and folders are about. It astonishes me how few people like to spend days constructing manual filters to weed out spam from their inbox"

Someone adds Bayesian filtering to MUAs/MDAs, classifying mail as (SPAM|NOT SPAM). The world rejoices as the intricate filter building interface got reduced to two buttons, and the complexity of combating spam went from O(n) to O(1), and email became manageable again.

Fast forward to present time

- "Hey, now that the problem of spam is solved, email is useful again. So useful in fact that I'm now lost in a sea of emails!"

- "That's what filters and labels are about. It astonishes me how few people like to spend days constructing manual filters to classify email"

Someone adds Bayesian filtering to MUAs/MDAs, classifying mail as (X|NOT X), for interesting values of X. The world rejoices as the intricate filter building interface got reduced to two buttons, and the complexity of classifying email went from O(n) to O(1), and email became manageable again.

Personally, I like getting these sorts of emails in my face so that I can click "unsubscribe" instantly and never worry about them flooding my inbox again.

Seriously, the Groups interface is an abomination. "Post" at the top? Really? I had to look for about 30 seconds to find the button when switching from the clear old Google Groups interface to the new mess.

"Ma, look! We're native mobile! Ma! MA! Look! Mobile! Ma!"

Like all the others have pointed out, you can (thankfully!) turn it off.

How long after that before google disables IMAP access to gmail?

hm. maybe I should start offering (paid) IMAP mail service again.

These mail clients used standards like pop3 or IMAP to communicate with the mail server. with IMAP, you can check email from multiple devices/computers just as easily as you can with gmail (though, for some reason, most users were confused by IMAP; pop3 was popular long after IMAP was universally available. using pop3 from multiple computers is a huge pain.)

(Of course, this was back before everyone and their dog had their own domain name, so switching email providers was still a huge pain in the ass.)

My suggestion is that everyone pick an IMAP client to handle their email, then switch between providers as-needed.

What evidence is there that google will ever stop supporting IMAP? What makes you think another provider is not going to stop supporting IMAP, or stop existing at all? What's so hard about switching providers if google does drop IMAP, particularly if you're using your own domain?

Well, you get to choose your mail client independently of your mail provider.

>What evidence is there that google will ever stop supporting IMAP

I have no solid evidence, of course, but the fact that they've disabled xmmp support on gtalk, to me points at a google attempting to become more of an apple or facebook-style 'walled garden'

(and all along, well, google makes money off showing you ads; if you check mail via IMAP, you aren't reading those ads)

>What's so hard about switching providers if google does drop IMAP, particularly if you're using your own domain?

If you are using IMAP to check your mail, and have your own domain, this isn't hard at all.

My view is that being a mass market IMAP provider wouldn't make all that much sense unless google did turn off IMAP, or unless google otherwise started screwing things up (things, I mean, besides the UI)

However... it's easier to do something if you've been doing it for a while, you know? I haven't seriously sysadmin'd a mailserver for anything but my own company in... almost a decade now. It would take me some time to get up to speed. So yes, if I want to be in a position to swoop in if google disables IMAP, I should probably start now.

Yes, there is, if you are willing to live a Spartan e-mail lifestyle, like I do.

Simply go to:

https://mail.google.com/mail/h/

I never really liked their new-fangled interface they came up with a few years ago, and they said they wouldn't deprecate the old one, so I kept using it.