If you are, like me, a fan of the Gmail Basic HTML view, then you must have noticed the following splash screen trying to access Gmail through its Basic HTML UI in recent days. When I saw it for the first time, my heart sank. As someone who started using Gmail a month after its launch, the Gmail Basic HTML view was the first Gmail UI I was introduced to and it was love at first sight. I loved the cleanliness of the layout, the placement and the functionality of the search box, quick access to the Contacts and the various links at the top and the bottom of the inbox screen among other things. With time, other features were added to the view, until in 2011, the Gmail team decided to overhaul the default Gmail UI to a more polished UI, which was called the Gmail standard web view to differentiate it from the Gmail Basic HTML view. Since the majority of the users back then used browsers to access Gmail, the change in the UI caused a big discussion in the Gmail help forum and resulted in th...
I'm a Diamond Product Expert for Gmail and Google Accounts and this blog includes articles in English, Bengali and at times Hindi on new Gmail and Google Accounts feature launches or changes, Workarounds or explanations on issues affecting the users in the Gmail and Accounts Help Communities and documenting instructions I do not find in the Help Center articles.