Gmail Update Provides Tabs for Messages

By Cynthia Herbert :: 5:14 PM

Google’s cloud-based e-mail service, Gmail, is adding some new features for message sorting and organization.

Gmail will now offer users the ability to funnel their messages into five different inbox categories, or tabs. The tabs include the primary inbox where most messages are routed, a Social category for e-mail and notifications from Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc., a Promotions category for e-mail from businesses and vendors, an Updates category, for e-mail related to deadline-driven events, like airline flights and reservations, and a Forum category for aggregating e-mail from online discussion boards and listservs.

Users will be able to customize their new inbox, including which of the five tabs (or none) that they want to display. Mail will be able to be dragged-and-dropped from one tab to another, and users can set up their preferences so that mail from a particular sender always is routed to a certain tab.

The changes will be rolled out gradually to the desktop/web version of Gmail first, and then to mobile clients on both the Android and iOS operating systems.