Brace yourselves: A Gmail redesign is coming

Since people seem to love it when things change on the Internet, Google has decided that it's high-time Gmail got an overhaul. Again.

Now that it's blown past Hotmail to become the world's number-one email service, Gmail is set to incorporate a new tabbing system à la Chrome to help you sort through incoming messages.

The tabs themselves are pretty self-explanatory. There's a Primary tab; a Social tab for all your Twitter and Facebook updates; Promotions for all those Groupon-style daily deals you delete, anyway; and one more for Updates, which contains your bills and receipts.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Why tabs? It makes your email nice and neat, for starters. And it obviates the need for multiple Gmail accounts for different things (bills, newsletters, etc.). Google, let's remember, is like Facebook in that it wants to quantify your data; hence, Google+. Jumping between Google accounts obviously makes it harder for the Mountain View mothership to pin down your identity across its different services. Google would much rather you stay signed into one account the whole time.

If it works as promised, the Gmail update will be like getting email within email — a digital matryoshka doll, if you will. Luckily, if you don't like the tabbing system, you can just delete whichever tabs you don't really want, or go back to the Classic view for tab-free emailing.

Google says the new features will roll out slowly for users over the coming weeks, along with updates to the iOS and Android apps. And who knows? Maybe it'll even help you reach Inbox Zero.

(Via Google)