Gmail on Android has always felt rather neglected compared to its desktop counterpart. To this date, it isn’t possible to set up and change filters for incoming mail in the mobile app, and you can’t use custom inboxes. While we’ve given up on ever seeing this functionality in the app, Google has at least budged to bring a more minor but still useful feature to Gmail on Android. The company shared that you’ll soon be able to use search filters in mobile Gmail, dubbed chips.
The filters in mobile Gmail are pretty much identical to those available in the desktop version, first introduced in February 2020. Once you start a query, you’ll find a selection of dropdown menus (or chips) below the search bar that allow you to further narrow down your search. You can select specific senders or addressees, specific dates and date ranges, and choose whether the sought-after email has attachments or not.
The chips are rolling out to the app as a server-side change. A Twitter user tipped us that the filters are available for him in a recent version of the app, but installing the latest release of Gmail from APK Mirror wouldn’t change anything for us when we tried. It looks like we’ll have to be patient, with Google anticipating a completed rollout by the end of October.
Images via 9to5Google.
9to5Google has noticed another small change currently rolling out to the mobile app. The new Material You bottom bar has shrunken ever so slightly so it uses up less vertical space. It’s now closer to how things were before the redesign. Since the extra-bulky bottom bar is still visible in other Google apps, the question remains whether Google wants to opt for this small revamp for all apps or not.
