Gmail’s redesign is rolling out now for regular Google Account users and here’s how to use it

Just a few weeks ago, Google revealed a massive, visual overhaul for Gmail complete with Material You theming. At the time, it was only announced for Workspace accounts, but now, the Google Workspace Updates blog post that initially announced it has been updated to reveal that the design is now rolling out to personal, free Google Accounts.

In addition to standard accounts, anyone with a Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, or Nonprofit account, as well as those with G Suite Basic and Business licenses should start seeing the update show up as well beginning today so long as they have set up their organization on a Rapid Release domain.

Anyone with a Scheduled Release domain will still have to wait until February 28, 2022 to begin seeing a rollout. If you’re wondering if it’s hit your account yet, click on the cogwheel at the top right of Gmail to access the “quick settings” and click “Try out the new Gmail view” before reloading your web app.

On top of beginning the rollout for the aforementioned account types, Google also updated its Gmail Support site to help users understand how to use the new Gmail Integrated View. As you can see below, it features a new app menu experience so that all of your email, chats, Spaces, and meetings can all be found in one place, with switching being seamless.

For those who were wondering whether or not the hamburger menu on the top-left would collapse the app menu in addition to the mail labels, chats, or whatever else occupied the sidebar depending on which app tab you had active, the answer is no. The app menu will be persistent, or ever-present no matter what, so take that for what you will.

There’s also a new notification bubble on the bottom-left if you have an unread Chat message. From here, you can open your message as a pop-out or in the full window. Your status indicator for Chat has been moved to the top-right of the screen too, so it almost seems as though said indicator will be for your entire Google Account and not just for Chat, but we’ll see.

At this time, we have yet to receive the update on our accounts, so if you’ve got it already, let us know in the comments what you think about it! Here’s a video detailing the new layout and how to navigate it: