Gmail, YouTube Music, and Google Drive getting new Android 12 Material You widgets

Abner Li | Oct 19 2021 - 11:27 am PT

Android 12 is rolling out now to current Pixel phones, and Google took the Pixel 6 launch as an opportunity to preview more Material You widgets from major first-party apps.

With the Material You redesign of Gmail, the widget was updated to support a touch of Dynamic Color theming in the top bar and compose FAB. However, the general layout was unchanged from before.

A new Gmail Material You widget will give you a “personalized quick glance” at your inbox with messages displayed in cards that note the sender and subject line, as well as time received. There’s an archive shortcut at the end of each line, while there are buttons for writing a new email, Chat, Spaces, and Meet at the right edge. It’s very similarly modeled after the Google Keep widget.

In the Workspace family, Google Drive’s new widget provides “quick access to your most important files.” There’s a pill-shaped search field and upload button, while a scrollable list is below. This switches to a 2×1 grid when compacted.

On the consumer app front, YouTube Music is getting a new widget that combines Now Playing with suggested tracks. The concept is similar to YouTube Music on iOS. Unfortunately, thumbs-up and play/pause are the only available controls in the top row.

Elsewhere, we see the new widget shapes/styles for Google Photos, as well as another look at Google Maps.

Google did not say when these new Android 12 Material You widgets for each app are coming out, but all the others (Keep, Weather, and Clock) shown in the Twitter thread are already available.