Chrome is improving its email verification shortcut, and Android support could be next

Google is tweaking Chrome’s experimental email verification feature, lifting a key restriction that made the shortcut far less useful than it could have been.

For those unfamiliar, the experimental tool aims to eliminate the hassle of switching to your inbox for a verification code by confirming your address directly with participating email providers like Gmail.

Up until now, the shortcut only triggered if you used Chrome’s autofill or autocomplete functions. That limitation is officially gone. Google notes that the verification check will now start after an email is entered “in any way (for example, typing or pasting)” as soon as you exit the text field.

To keep users in the loop, Google is also adding a visual indicator inside the input box — a subtle spinner while Chrome verifies the address, followed by a checkmark once complete. You can check out the video below for a demonstration of this:

Google also explained why it added the visual indicator, noting that it’s a way to stop people from submitting a form before the backend verification finishes.

The bigger news, however, might be where the feature is heading next. While currently confined to desktop browsers, Google says it is “actively exploring support on Android too.” This makes sense if you think about it. A lot of sign-ups take place on mobile devices, so it’s only natural that you’d want to make it easier for people to verify their email addresses on their phones too.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, it’s important to note that this is still under testing. Don’t expect verification emails or magic links to disappear across the web overnight.

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