Blogs on Gmail and Google Accounts

A few days ago, a peer of mine in the Gmail and Google Accounts help communities, shared with me a link to a thread where a user happened to mention seeing the Update category label in his messages even after he has deselected the categories in his default Gmail layout from the  Inbox tab under Gmail settings . The user also included screenshots which looked like the ones below: Given how most of our Gmail is set up, this appeared odd. The categories are not labels; so, how could they appear as such? Since the categories appeared as labels, it was apparent that the reason for this uncommon behavior should lie inside the Labels tab under Gmail settings . In there, scrolling down below the System labels section, under Categories, it appeared as seen below, and the highlighted section resolved the mystery. The click to show/hide in message list options, set to show, caused this unusual display of categories as labels in the user's inbox. When I cli

Labels are among the unique features of Gmail. So, while reading through the Gmail Help article on Labels,  Create labels to organize Gmail , I was a bit surprised when I realized that it does not contain instructions on how to change the color of the labels.  When a label is created in Gmail, they are assigned a default color which is somewhat dark grayish. To change the default color, head over to the left panel section of the Gmail page where the labels are listed, locate the label, and hover the mouse pointer over it.  When you do that, you will notice a 3-dot (overflow/more menu) icon appear on the right side. Click on it to see a list of label-related actions. Click on the first option that reads Label color to see a palette of preset combinations. Click on any to select and apply that combination of text and background color to that label. If you do not fancy any of the preset color combinations of the palette, or if you have exhausted them owing t

At times, for various reasons, we need to access the Gmail standard view and all we have with us is our mobile phone. The standard view is only accessible via supported desktop browsers and I have seen many users in the Gmail Help Community inconvenienced while having to access the Gmail standard view from their mobile devices. Hence, this blog. For the sake of convenience, I have decided to list the steps separately for Android phone and iPhone. Click on the links below to directly go to the section that describes the steps for your device. Steps for Android Steps for iPhone For testing purposes, I have chosen to use Chrome on my Android phone and Safari on my iPhone as they are the commonly used browsers in those devices respectively, and are likely to benefit the maximum number of users.  I have also ensured that the browsers are running their latest versions. Additionally, I have included the screenshot of how to request Desktop Site in Chrome browser for iOS. In th