Thunderbolt Digital are a local social media and email marketing Surrey based agency whose professional team love to keep up with the latest news, updates and trends in website design. We love to see what various industry leaders are up to in their work, so that we can take important cues from them, keep up with the flow, and offer the most up to date advice and services to our clients! As keen Google users ourselves, the Thunderbolt team always make especially sure to keep on top of what they’re up to, and it seems that they just want to keep making things easier for their users; along with password free login tests in the works, the tech giant are also looking to improve their mailing features, by allowing improved account linking through Gmail!
In a recent blog post, our website design Surrey team spoke about Google announcing a new feature available on the Android Gmail app and desktop site that allows users to ‘Gmailify’ their Yahoo, Outlook and Hotmail email addresses, which will allow them to take advantage of Gmail’s advanced inbox features without having to switch accounts.
Users who choose to Gmailify their accounts will receive access to enhanced spam protection filters, organisational categories (including Social, Promotional and Primary), more advanced search options as well as Google Now cards based on actions undertaken from their linked accounts.
However, a key feature of Gmailify (the inbox categories) may perhaps prove not all that useful for those who already utilise folder features in Hotmail; in fact, we’ve already noticed some issues with our Gmailified accounts including either duplicate or missing folders, though this may be something that will be ironed out in future updates. Despite this, Gmail does keep everything all tied together for those with multiple accounts across multiple platforms, although it must be said that external email linking (along with basic management tools) has already been available in Gmail for a while.
Those wishing to take advantage Gmail’s features without wanting to switch accounts will also still find that they need to create a Gmail account in order to properly access the app and Gmailify their external accounts, which may prove a deal-breaker for some, though nothing but a minor inconvenience for others.
Gmailified accounts can be unlinked at any time if users are dissatisfied with performance, and both adding and removing linked accounts can be achieved through the Settings options in the burger menu.
The option to Gmailify your email accounts is currently available on android and web only, though it is likely that iOS will see support sometime in future. Google are also looking to add other email providers (on top of Yahoo, Hotmail and Outlook) at a later date, once they receive sufficient interest and support.