Gmail for Web Gets New Features to Make Sure You Have the Right Recipient

Gmail for Web is getting several new features that will help employees and organisations quickly compose and send emails to the intended recipients. Most of the changes pertain to the email Composer s in the Gmail for Web app. This includes a new right-click menu to view the full name and details of a recipient, avatar chips for recipients, and new checks while adding users outside contacts and organisation. The search giant has also brought new visual indicators for adding a user as a recipient. The latest features will be available to all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic, and Business customers.

Google has announced the rollout of new features to Gmail for Web via a blog post. It says the improvements will help users connect with their colleagues and stakeholders quickly and with confidence. Among the slew of updates, Google has added a right-click menu that allows users to view a contact’s full name and copy their email address. Also, the user can now decide how a contact appears to other recipients in an email. For example, if you have a contact saved as Project Manager, you can choose a different name that will be displayed to others receiving the email. This change will only apply to the said email and the contact name won’t be changed in your contacts list.

With the latest update, recipients will now have an avatar chip attached to the recipients they add while composing an email, which should help identify who has been added. A Gmail Web user can access a user’s information card by hovering over recipient chips or selecting and using the keyboard shortcut Alt/Option + →.

When enterprise users are emailing people outside their organisation that they have interacted with before, the contact name will be displayed in Yellow color. But when putting a new external contact as the recipient, it will be highlighted along with an out-of-organization avatar and warning banner.

Different domain names within the same organisation will no longer be marked as external with the latest update. Google uses the @google.com and @youtube.com domains as an example of this. Users from the former will not appear as out of organisation when added to an email from a @youtube.com user.

There is also a feature to avoid duplication of recipients. When including new recipients, the drop-down menu will grade-out the names that have already been added so you don’t add the same name in multiple fields — like both To and CC. Google says Gmail will automatically remove duplicate entries within the same fields, when moving emails between To, Cc, and Bcc fields.

Lastly, Gmail will now make sure that email addresses are written correctly, otherwise, it won’t turn these entries into recipient chips. Additionally, Gmail will warn a user to fix the error before sending the email by displaying an error message.

The new features for Gmail for Web have started rolling out from Wednesday, October 20, and will be available to all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic, and Business customers. Users with personal Google accounts can’t access the newly announced features.