What is changing?
Changes are mainly coming to the “Cc”, “Bcc”, and “to” fields to allow users to compose emails confidently. A new right-click menu has also been added to allow users to view recipients full names and email addresses. This addition will also allow you to quickly edit the recipients name and email address and open their “information card”. Furthermore, your contacts in the “Cc”, “Bcc”, and “to” fields will now include avatar chips to better identify the recipients. Visual indicators like checkmarks, and the use of gray tone in the drop-down menu have been added. This should help you avoid duplicate entries. Additionally, addresses of users outside your organization that you have interacted with will now be highlighted with a deep yellow color. This can come in handy for e.g. if you want to introduce your team to a new client.
However, contacts outside your organization that you haven’t interacted with will also include a warning banner. This feature is especially important to Gmail Enterprise users. Sending an email to the wrong person puts an organization at risk. You should know though, two different companies, owned by the same parent company, won’t be treated as “External Contacts”.
Gmail will validate if the email address has been typed in the correct format
To prevent undue errors, Gmail will now validate if the email address has been typed in the correct email format (e.g. [email protected]). It’s important to note that, Gmail will only validate the format of an address, not the email address itself. If by accident, you have saved an invalidly formatted email address, Gmail will now notify you with an error message before you send an email. This is a pretty significant change to Gmail as the structure of all Gmail addressing fields have been changed. If you use Chrome extensions related to the Compose UI, then you might want to check if they are compatible with the updated UI.
The rollout will complete by the end of 2021
These Gmail Compose UI updates will be available to all Workspace customers as well as Gsuite Basic and Business customers. Complete rollout is anticipated by the end of the year.
