Google recently announced the rollout of a new integrated view for Gmail, which will make it easier to switch between essential Google Workspace apps including Gmail, Chat, and Meet in a single central location.
More About the New Gmail Integrated View
Gmail’s new integrated view aims to provide a more seamless work experience for users. You’ll be able to more smoothly transition between your inbox and chats, as well as join meetings without changing tabs or opening new browser windows.
There will also be new consolidated views in Chat and Spaces, a new notifications system, and a new inbox view. Google has also stated that you will eventually be able to search for both emails and chats using the Gmail search bar.
Starting in February, 2022, Gmail users can opt in to try out the new Gmail interface. For now, you can switch back to the current, standard Gmail view at any time.
By April, 2022, Google will start to roll out its new integrated view to all end users, regardless of opt-in status, but you’ll still have the option to switch back to the standard view in the settings menu. However, the change will reportedly become permanent by the end of Q2, 2022.
Is Google Late to the Productivity Party?
It’s great to see Google taking steps to provide a more streamlined experience to help Gmail users be more productive and stay focused in a central, unified workspace, but this should have been done long ago, and there are better productivity tools out there.
While it will be interesting to see how the rollout of Gmail’s integrated view goes, we prefer to keep using a third-party alternative that syncs with Gmail to turn our email inbox into a productive workspace.
Our preference for doing this is Spike, the world’s first conversational email app.
Spike: A More Versatile Alternative to the New Gmail Interface
Spike is a Gmail client Windows users can use on all their devices to get more done in less time.
All of the changes coming to Gmail with the new integrated view are features that Spike already offers.
Minimizing contextual switching (switching between a bunch of different apps and screens) is exactly what Spike was designed to do, so these features aren’t being added as an afterthought.
What is conversational email?
Conversational email is a unique feature of Spike that turns your emails into chat conversations. This means that instead of seeing new emails in a standard inbox view, like in Gmail, you see messages in chat-style bubbles.
This eliminates the clutter from your inbox and makes reading and responding to high-priority emails feel as natural as chatting, ultimately helping you stay more focused and get more done, faster.
Even with Gmail’s new integrated view, you’ll still find yourself sifting through a cluttered inbox and messy email threads, full of repetitive subject lines, headers, footers, and other content that you have to navigate to find one small piece of text.
This is not the case with Spike. You can sync one or more Gmail accounts to Spike, so you’re still receiving all the same emails as you do to your Gmail, but in a much more streamlined format.
Additionally, Spike’s high-priority inbox filters out low-priority emails, such as newsletters and other marketing content. That way, you’re only seeing what’s most relevant, and you can deal with the less important stuff when you have time.
Finally, when you need to find a key piece of information or a file, Spike’s Super Search tool makes it incredibly easy.
Rather than scrolling through endless threads to find what you need, simply use the advanced search tool to find something using keywords. You can even preview file attachments without opening them.
Other Spike features that make it better than the new Gmail interface
Besides the one-of-a-kind conversational email functionality of Spike, there are a bunch of other built-in features that make it a powerful workspace for you and your team.
For starters, there is built-in video conferencing, so you can start a video chat with teammates or other collaborators right within the same app that you’re doing your emailing in — there’s no need to switch contexts to other third-party video conferencing apps.
Spike also has built-in collaborative notes, tasks, and to-do lists, so you can manage all you and your team’s workflows from one central location. The online notes also have a handy integrated sidebar chat, for discussing things in real-time to get them done faster.
The Bottom Line
The release of Gmail’s new integrated view is a confirmation of something we’ve known for a while now: individuals and teams need a unified workspace with a smooth, streamlined navigation experience.
Switching contexts from screen to screen and app to app hurts productivity and wastes time. But, by using a third-party email and productivity app like Spike you can get more done in less time.
Since Spike integrates seamlessly with your Gmail account, there’s no need to wait for the rollout of new Gmail interfaces and features, either. All the features and tools you need to collaborate and communicate more effectively are already built into Spike.