If you try to send a JavaScript attachment using Gmail or if you want to download a .js attachment, you'll get a new anti-virus warning: "Blocked for security reasons", "1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled".


.JS has been added to the long list of file types that are blocked by Gmail for security reasons. The full list: .ADE, .ADP, .BAT, .CHM, .CMD, .COM, .CPL, .EXE, .HTA, .INS, .ISP, .JAR, .JS (NEW), .JSE, .LIB, .LNK, .MDE, .MSC, .MSI, .MSP, .MST, .NSH .PIF, .SCR, .SCT, .SHB, .SYS, .VB, .VBE, .VBS, .VXD, .WSC, .WSF, .WSH. "To prevent against potential viruses, Gmail doesn't allow you to attach certain types of files, including: certain file types (listed above), including their compressed form (like .gz or .bz2 files) or when found within archives (like .zip or .tgz files), documents with malicious macros, archives whose listed file content is password protected, archives whose content includes a password protected archive."

The GSuite Blog informs that "for inbound mail, senders will get a bounce message explaining why the email was blocked. If you still need to send .js files for legitimate reasons, you can use Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, or other storage solutions to share or send your files."

You can still send JavaScript files using Gmail if you change the extension. What about downloading old .js attachments? Try the workarounds from this post.

Gmail has a new interface for displaying the raw version of a message. If you click the arrow icon next to "reply" and then "show original", you'll see a list of headers like "message ID", "from", "to", "subject", "SPF", "DKIM", a link for downloading the message and then the actual text of the message. Until now, Gmail only displayed the text of the message.


The new interface also displays help center links with additional information about SPF records, DKIM signatures and the DMARC standard. All of these values are useful for identifying spoofed email messages, which forge the sender address.

{ Thanks, Dirk Zaal. }

Gmail's app for Android is more than a mobile app for Gmail, it's also a general-purpose mail client. You can add IMAP, POP3 or Exchange accounts and use the Gmail app to read, compose and organize your mail. Now Google added the option to Gmailify your email accounts, which means bringing Gmail features without having to switch to a Gmail account.

"Gmailify links your existing account to Gmail so that you get all the bells and whistles — spam protection, inbox organization and even Google Now cards based on your mail — without having to leave your current address behind. All you need to do is open the Gmail app, sign in to your email account(s), and enable Gmailify," informs Google.


Which features are available? Spam protection, automatic categorization, labels, better search with support for advanced search operators, travel and hotel reservations appearing automatically in Google Now, better mobile notifications and all the other Gmail features.

How does it work? You can link your non-Gmail address (Yahoo Mail, Outlook.com, AOL Mail, etc.) to an existing Gmail account or to a new Gmail account. "When you sign in to the linked Gmail address, you'll see your messages from the other email provider in your mailbox. You'll be able to read, reply, and organize them just like you do in Gmail." The Gmail app keeps everything in sync, so a read email will be marked as read in the original account, archived messages will be added to a new Archive folder, while Gmail labels will be treated like folders.

Ever wanted to quickly switch between Gmail and Inbox? You can add Inbox to Google's app launcher: just go to inbox.google.com, click the grid icon at the top of the page and then click "add a shortcut". Drag and drop the icon to change its position.


I placed the Inbox shortcut next to Gmail's shortcut.


Inbox has a setting that lets you redirect Gmail to inbox.google.com, just in case you want to switch to Inbox.

I'm not sure if this is new, but I've noticed that Google now promotes the Inbox app when opening Gmail in the mobile browser. "Get Inbox by Gmail, a new email app from the Gmail team," suggests the interstitial page, which still lets you "go to the mobile Gmail site".

Here's a screenshot from an iPad:


And another screenshot from a Nexus 5:


Google used to promote the Gmail app.

If you like Google Inbox and you're wondering why it doesn't replace Gmail, there's a setting that redirects Gmail to Inbox. Just go to Inbox, open the settings box, switch to the "Other" tab, enable "Redirect Gmail to inbox.google.com" and click "Done". The next time you type mail.google.com, gmail.com or click on a Gmail shortcut or bookmark, you'll be sent to inbox.google.com.


You can still open Gmail: just click the new "Gmail" menu item, which is placed below "Contacts" in Inbox's sidebar. The URL that temporarily disables redirects is https://mail.google.com/mail/?ibxr=0.


"If you often go to Gmail in your web browser when you really mean to go to Inbox, you can turn on a setting so that you'll automatically be taken to Inbox when you visit gmail.com or mail.google.com on a computer. You can always get back to Gmail using a simple link in Inbox," informs Google. The setting was added a few weeks ago.

Gmail changed the text that's displayed when you don't have any message in your inbox. Now Gmail promotes Google Inbox: "No new mail! Want to hit inbox zero more often? Try our new app, Inbox by Gmail."


So why can you hit inbox zero more often if you use Google Inbox? You can snooze emails until you're ready to deal with them, you can open attachments, watch videos, open news articles and read important information extracted from a message without having to open it. For example, Google Inbox shows flight status next to flight reservation emails and package tracking links next to order updates from Amazon or other shopping sites.

{ Thanks, Ryan Goldstein. }

Gmail's theme gallery added hundreds of new high-resolution photos and many of them were taken by Google employees like Romain Guy and Greg Bullock. Click "more photos" in the "pick your theme" dialog to find all the new photos. You can still use your own photos, upload photos or paste a URL.



After you select a background image, Gmail lets you customize it using 3 features: select light or dark text background, add vignette to make borders darker or you can blur the background image. The nice thing is that Gmail remembers your settings for each theme, so you don't have to adjust them every time you select a new theme.


My favorite feature is the vignette effect:


The "theme" tab from Gmail's settings page is no longer useful, now that there's a separate theme picker. All the themes used to be displayed there, but now the tab only includes a link to "set theme".


"Your inbox is home to some of your most meaningful and entertaining messages — from that acceptance letter, to those throwback photos — so we think it's important for Gmail to feel just as personal (and fun!)," says Google. To make Gmail more fun, Google also added emojis for almost every occasion.

After spending 6 years in Gmail Labs, "undo send" is now a regular Gmail feature. You can find it in the settings, bellow "send and archive". The feature is disabled by default, but it's enabled if you've already used the Gmail Labs feature.

So what's so great about "undo send"? Gmail doesn't send email immediately and there's a short delay that lets you undo sending the message, just in case you changed your mind, you noticed a mistake or you picked the wrong sender. There are 4 options for the cancellation period: 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds and 30 seconds.


After sending a message, you'll get an "Undo" link next to "Your message has been sent". If you click the "Undo" link, you can edit the message, save it as a draft or delete it.


"Undo send" has been recently added to Google Inbox for desktop and mobile. Mashable reports that Gmail's mobile apps will also add this feature: "Google said it will roll out the feature to mobile in the future but didn't elaborate on the timeline."

If you use this URL to open Gmail's basic HTML interface, you'll probably see this message:

"Do you really want to use HTML Gmail? You're about to use a version of Gmail designed for slower connections and legacy browsers. To get all of Gmail's features, including inbox categories, images, and quick actions, please use the latest version of Gmail (recommended)."

You can click "Take me to latest Gmail" or "I'd like to use HTML Gmail" if you really, really want to use it.

{ Thanks, Luiz Pimenta. }

Back in 2012, Gmail enhanced the search feature by showing relevant emails, Google Calendar events, Google Drive files as you type your query. A similar feature is now available in Google Calendar and Google Drive.

For example, you can type a query in Google Calendar and find emails and Google Drive files, in addition to Google Calendar events. Click one of the results and it opens in a new tab.


Google Drive shows Google Calendar events and results from Gmail. If there are no Google Drive results, you'll see this message: "there are no recent records that match your search".


Similar results are included in the standalone web apps for Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.


{ Thanks, Angelo Giuffrida. }

Gmail has a new login page. When you first sign in, Google only asks you to enter you email address. Click Next to enter your password and Google might show your name and your Google+ profile photo.


It's not clear if Google only shows the name and the profile photo for your Gmail accounts. I tried various email addresses and Gmail only displayed a generic image.


{ Thanks, Maurice Wahba. }

If you switched to the new Google Contacts interface and select Contacts from the Gmail dropdown, you'll no longer see the old Google Contacts. Google will open the Contacts preview in a new tab and not inside Gmail, which doesn't use Material Design yet.


You can switch back to the old Contacts by clicking "Leave the Contacts preview" in the "More" menu. Another option is to use this permalink for the old Google Contacts: https://mail.google.com/mail/#contacts or this keyboard shortcut: press g then c in Gmail (assuming that keyboard shortcuts are enabled).

After reinventing Gmail with Google Inbox, Google is about to release a new invite-only service that will change the way you manage your mail. It's called Google Spam and it shows the most popular spam messages sent to Gmail users. That's right, Google Spam will go beyond your inbox and show what you've been missing all this time: the spam messages received by other people.


To protect user privacy, Google Spam will only show messages received by at least 10,000 Gmail users. You'll be able to star your favorite spam messages, label them, forward them to your friends and even find their true meaning.

Gmail will highlight important spam messages, so the next time you receive messages from "the office of the US Ambassador to Nigeria", "Mr. Lee Kun-hee of Samsung Group chief and the Hyundai chaebol" or from Gmail Security Maintenance, you'll know if they're featured in Google Spam.

Gmail's app for Android is actually a mail client and it lets you add all your email accounts, including those from Yahoo Mail and Outlook.com. The main benefits of integrating the stock Email app are that it can now be updated faster and you only need to use a single app instead of two apps. The latest version of the Gmail app for Android brings a lot of new features: unified inbox, conversation view for non-Gmail accounts, better search suggestions, larger attachment previews and more.


The "all inboxes" section shows the messages from all your accounts, so you can quickly read them and write replies without having to switch between your accounts. Threaded conversations are no longer limited to Gmail accounts: conversation view is available for all your email accounts.

"Today’s update also includes more responsive animations (like when you open and close a conversation), larger attachment previews to help you see what's inside, and the ability to save to Drive with a single tap," informs Google.

A few days ago, I received a spam message in Gmail. Instead of flagging the message as spam, Gmail displayed this warning: "Be careful with this message. Someone might be trying to trick you by using similar-looking characters (such as Σ and E) in the email addresses contained in this message."

Last year, Gmail added support for non-Latin characters in email addresses. It also wanted to make sure that the new feature wasn't "abused by spammers or scammers trying to send misleading or harmful messages" and it started to reject messages from email addresses which used "suspicious combinations of letters that could be misleading".

There's a help center article that explains more about this feature. "If you see a warning that someone might be trying to trick you by using similar-looking characters in the email addresses of a message, you should take a close look at the sender's email address and the addresses of anyone else the email has been sent to. The addresses might be different than they seem. Sometimes, the difference is easy to spot if you look carefully. For example, someone might use a Greek character ('Σ') for the Latin character 'E'. In other situations, it's impossible to detect the difference. For instance, the Greek character ('ο') looks exactly the same as the Latin character 'o'."

I was checking some old Gmail messages and I noticed this warning: "Anti-virus warning - 1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled." It turns out that the .rar archive was "blocked for security reasons" and I can't download it.

There are some file types that are blocked by Gmail, but .rar is not one of them. Here's the list: ".ade, .adp, .bat, .chm, .cmd, .com, .cpl, .exe, .hta, .ins, .isp, .jse, .lib, .lnk, .mde, .msc, .msp, .mst, .pif, .scr, .sct, .shb, .sys, .vb, .vbe, .vbs, .vxd, .wsc, .wsf, .wsh". It turns out that the archive included a few .bat files inside a .zip archive and "Gmail won't accept these file types even if they're sent in a zipped format".

Anti-virus warning in Gmail's web interface

How to download the blocked attachment? I couldn't find a way to do this from the web interface. Gmail disabled the download button and the "save to Drive" button. Not even the "basic HTML" Gmail interface lets you download the file and the "download all" link only lets you download all safe attachments.

Fortunately, you can use other mail clients: Outlook, Thunderbird, KMail, Apple Mail. Surprisingly, Gmail's Android app lets you download blocked files or save them to Google Drive. Gmail's iOS app doesn't let you download blocked attachments, but you can save them to Google Drive. I also checked the built-in mail clients from iOS and Mac OS X and it's easy to download all attachments. To open archives in iOS, install an app like iZip first.

Gmail's Android app

Gmail has recently updated the icon for PDF attachments: it no longer uses the Adobe Reader icon and it opted for a basic text icon.


Here's the PDF icon used by Gmail since its release back in 2004:


Google Drive also shows the new icon for PDF files:


Now that browsers like Chrome and Firefox have built-in support for opening PDF files, Gmail and Google Drive let you open PDF files, Adobe Reader is less important and fewer people install Adobe's PDF software. That's probably the reason why Google picked a different icon.

{ Thanks, Joost Honig and Angelo Giuffrida. }

Gmail now promotes Google Inbox. If Inbox is enabled for your account, you might see this message in Chrome: "Good news – Inbox by Gmail is enabled for this account. To use it on the web, go to inbox.google.com. You can always use Gmail at mail.google.com."


Gmail also shows a promotional link for Google Inbox at the bottom of the page: "Take me to Inbox".


If you click "x", Gmail hides the link and shows this message: "You dismissed the Inbox link." Click "Don't show this again" to permanently hide the Inbox link.

You can now attach Google Drive files to Gmail messages. When you compose a message, click the Drive button, pick a file and select "insert as attachment" at the bottom of the pane. Then click "insert" and the file is added as an attachment, not as a link. You can only use this feature for files that haven't been converted to Google's formats.


Here's an example of attachment from Google Drive:


If you pick a file that's too big, you'll get this error message: "Your message could not be saved because it exceeds the maximum size of 25 MB. Try removing an attachment."

"There are now more ways to share Drive files with friends and family through Gmail, without having to worry about accidentally removing their access. By selecting the 'Insert as Attachment' option from Drive you'll be able to attach non-Google files directly to your Gmail message. Now you can be sure your friend will always have that great candid photo from your weekend getaway, or the PDF for your aunt's fruitcake recipe (do people actually eat Fruitcake?) even if you delete it from your Drive," informs Google.