Humans are creatures of habit. We like things the way they are as that allows our brains to focus on new things, more important things so we don’t have to start worrying about ‘re-inventing the wheel.’

For millions of users across the globe, Google’s email offering, Gmail, is an integral part of their workflow. Granted, Gmail has evolved a great deal over the years to offer more features while improving the look and feel.

Gmail-inline-new

Some changes tend to get a positive response from users while some are often outright hated by the said users and recently, Gmail made a change that many are not massive fans of.

See, recently, Gmail’s desktop client was tweaked so that the Gmail label that was previously colored was changed to colored outlines of the same. The user feedback pretty much sums up what the general consensus about this change is.

Gmail labels change
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One of the worst moves @gmail has made is changing label colors to an outline instead of a solid fill. So hard on the eye. Not user-friendly. Give us an option to switch it back. #Gmail
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After a week, I can confidently say I hate Gmail new label color outline instead of the filled in color. I specifically chose colored labels to make them easier to see. Now I have 1/4 of that color reference and it’s harder to tell shades of color by the outline alone.
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According to a majority of Gmail users, this subtle design tweak is not welcome as it makes the user experience a lot harder and hurts their eyes.

Some rightfully point out that this change renders years of meticulous planning and housekeeping irrelevant since the change makes it impossible to differentiate the carefully color-coordinated labels.

Gmail-app

For users that are not fans of this new change, there might be a way around it. According to some users, you can temporarily fix this by turning the Hangouts / Chat pane on: under Settings, Chat and Meet, then “Hangouts on”

For now, the rallying call is for Gmail users who aren’t exactly thrilled with this change to go on and give their feedback to Google by clicking the ? icon in the top right.

Luckily, this might not be here for long as a Diamond Product Expert from Google has been noted saying that this is going to be rolled back. However, we still don’t have any timeframes for this report.

rolled back

ive been informed that this will be rolled back. i do not know WHEN.
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We’d love to get your thoughts on this new change. Are you also alarmed at this new Gmail label color change or do you like it? Leave a comment below.

NOTE: We have these and many more Gmail stories in our dedicated Google section so stay tuned.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Clinton Madegwa
1118 Posts

A cybernaut grasping at all things tech. Lover of Android, Linux, and custom ROMS. A nerd, a writer, an avid reader.

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