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Saying Goodbye to the Gmail Basic HTML view

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 the Gmail team having a Q&A session with the forum users to provide answers to the frequently asked questions related to the change. 

The decision to keep the Basic HTML view as an alternate Gmail UI came as a relief as many would continue to use it for various purposes such as accessing Gmail from older computers, or from areas without high-speed internet, as a troubleshooting option, even as a workaround for visual issues or as I have come to learn from users posting in the forum - screen readers, and simply because it was (and still is) a blazingly fast UI.

One reason why this deprecation hits me hard is that I still access the Gmail Basic HTML view when I am reading my emails, searching through the archive for a reference to an old issue while responding to forum questions, creating something simple like a label or a filter or adding a "Send mail" alias among other things, including troubleshooting for various issues that I would see get reported in the forum with the Gmail standard web UI - in short, for everything that does not require me to use the Gmail standard view. 

The Gmail Basic HTML view is used to serve as the default Gmail Desktop view in mobile browsers. I have no idea how this deprecation will impact the Gmail mobile browser UI. I guess we shall find that out in due course.

Looking back, what instantly endeared me to this UI were its conversation view (it was a new concept back in 2004) and the display of senders' names in different colours. 


The fact that I will not be able to sign into this wonderful yet simple UI from February 2024, or will be unable to perform my usual activities feels bittersweet to me. I wish they would have taken the decision to sunset this UI on the exact date of its official launch, April 1, but I guess the current team is oblivious to the significance of that date.

Updated to include: Following the sunset of the Gmail HTML view UI, the way to access Gmail's standard web UI from a mobile browser is as follows:

  1. Open a mobile browser.
  2. Type in https://www.google.com/ in the address bar.
  3. Enable Desktop site option. It is different for each browser.
  4. Now, type in https://mail.google.com/ in the address bar.
  5. Enter your account credentials and you can access Gmail via the standard web UI.
Last updated on: March 8, 2024.

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