Gmail (Google Mail) Turns 15

Back in 2004, you have to deal with email with minimal storage space; only a few MBs. On top of that, your email will be constantly flooded with spam with no real solution in sight. To add problem to the matter, there is no easy way for you to search your inbox to look for the important email. Gmail (Google Mail) was built to address all of the above problem and more. With Gmail’s 15 birthday, here is a trip down memory lane and what you can look forward to in the coming years.

Gmail (Google Mail) is different from the first day

Launched on April’s Fool Day in the year 2004, many people thought that it was one of the pranks of the day. People soon realised that despite the timing, it wasn’t a joke. Gmail was launched with a 1GB storage space, close to 100 times more than the closest competitors, together with a powerful search function, the Google Search technology. Messages were grouped into conversation threads instead of appearing as separate email messages.

On top of that, to combat the massive spam issue that people are facing then, Gmail (Google Mail) blocked spam before it arrived in your inbox and created a way for people to report spam. As the years go by, Google leveraged on artificial intelligence to improve the spam filtering capabilities. As of today, AI helps block close to 10 million span emails every minute.

Here is a video from 2007 to show how the good folks of Google combat spam:

Finally, when Gmail first launched, you can only use it on your computer. As the smartphones era arrives, Gmail naturally evolved to include phone and tablet. From a basic email function, Google continue improving their email service by introducing AI-powered features like “Smart Reply” and “Nudges” to help people to work much more efficiently.

Here are some of the things to expect from your Gmail (Google Mail)

You might already have used “Smart Compose”, an AI-powered feature to help you write emails quicker by giving you suggestions to complete your sentence. Google will be updating to include more languages and on all devices soon. On top of that, it will start understanding you better and make more personalised suggestions (eg. “Hola” instead of “Hello” if that is how you type your email).

Next, you can schedule when to send out your email. No more messages at weird timings! Match your email message with the recipient’s time zone. With this feature, you can also choose to send your email at the time that you think a person will most likely see it and/or take action.

Finally, you can now get more things done in Gmail (Google Mail) without ever leaving your inbox. You can respond to a comment in a file that your team is working on (eg. Google Docs), check out hotel recommendations and more, directly within emails.

Look forward to bigger and better things from Google!

P.S: If you are looking to get an email address with your company name, check out the different G Suite packages available for your business.