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Gmail for Android gets UI tweaks and great new features in new update

Published May 20th, 2014 8:30AM EDT
Gmail for Android 4.8 Update Features

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Gmail for Android has been updated to version 4.8, which offers various user interface tweaks as well as new features including a very useful “Save to Google Drive” option that will let them save attachments to the cloud instead of downloading them on their mobile devices. Attachments can also be printed directly in Gmail for Android 4.8.

When it comes to design changes, Google has updated the pull-to-refresh animation and moved the Settings, Help and Feedback menu buttons from the overflow menu to the sliding navigation drawer, Android Police reports. The new Gmail update also brings a richer profile switcher, showing Google+ avatars linked to Gmail accounts, and features friendlier graphics and messages for screens where there’s no content available.

One other useful feature is that Gmail will now show the rest of truncated messages, something it wasn’t able to do before. Gmail will also explain why a message is marked as spam at the top of the email.

Google has also improved Gmail for right-to-left languages including Arabic, Hebrew and Persian.

“If you’re an English speaker, you’re used to reading sentences from left-to-right,” the company wrote on Google+. “But there are a lot of languages out there that are written from right-to-left (RTL), such as Arabic, Hebrew and Persian. If you’re a speaker of one of these languages, Gmail on Android now looks and feels the way you’d expect with profile pictures and the navigation menu on the right instead of the left.”

Gmail for Android 4.8 will be rolling out to users in the coming days, Google said.

Images showing some of the new features of Gmail for Android follow below.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.