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Google revamping Multiple Inboxes in Gmail with design tweaks, merged settings

Multiple Inboxes in Gmail allow you to break out important messages and have them appear next to your primary email feed. Google today announced a revamp of the power feature that adds visual tweaks and elevates them in settings.

There are a handful of related changes to this revamp, starting with Gmail’s Multiple Inboxes no longer supporting the split pane configuration that allows you view the body of an email next to the message list. The “preview pane” — which is being renamed to “reading pane” — is still available for other inbox configurations. This change will be accompanied by a warning prompt.

In settings, Gmail is elevating Multiple Inboxes out of the “Advanced” menu. To enable, all you need to do is select that “Inbox type” in the appropriate tab. Preferences to configure up to five sections will appear below that instead of being housed in a seperate section.

On the visual front, there are now individual scroll bars for multiple inboxes in the right-side configuration.

This will allow you to scroll in either inbox separately as needed so you can more flexibly navigate your email. Previously, you could only scroll both inboxes at once.

Panels can be adjusted with a divider to minimize or maximize each view as needed. There’s also a quick chevron shortcut to collapse additional inboxes. Lastly, there is a single toolbar to archive, delete, label, and perform other triage actions.

The revamp to Gmail’s Multiple Inboxes start February 20 for the Rapid release and March 5 for Scheduled release domains. This change will be available for all G Suite customers and personal Google Accounts.

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com