Despite being one of the biggest email services on the planet, Gmail still lacks a few basic features that other services have had for years. One of those features is email scheduling, which is incredibly still not possible in the mobile Gmail app or online. As is stands, the only way to schedule an email in Gmail is to use a script or download a separate app or extension, but after fifteen years, Google might finally add an official scheduler.
In its teardown of the latest Gmail app APK, Android Police discovered a few lines of code which seem to suggest that a native scheduling feature will be included in a future update for the app. The bad news is that there’s no telling when this new feature will actually begin to roll out — it could be this week or in a few months.
As Android Police notes, two lines of code from the APK include the phrase “schedule send,” and while it’s impossible to know for sure that Google is referencing the ability to schedule an email to send at a later time, it appears to be the most obvious explanation. If it hits the Android app in the near future, the web client will likely receive the feature soon after, if not at the same time. The feature sets on mobile and the web typically mirror one another.
It’s honestly hard to believe that such a basic feature hasn’t been added to Gmail in its 14 years of existence, but it’s better late than never. As someone who spends hours every day sending and receiving emails for work, having the ability to delay a response without having to manually remind myself to do so would be a huge help.
