Your Gmail account gets a big free upgrade and the changes can’t come soon enough

PARIS, FRANCE - JULY 04: In this photo illustration, the logo of the Gmail app homepage is seen on the screen of an iPhone in front of a computer screen showing a Google logo on July 04, 2018 in Paris, France. According to the Wall Street Journal dozens of Google partner companies have access to emails from 1.5 billion Gmail users. Gmail is a free email service offered by Google. (Photo Illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images)

Millions of Gmail users will soon be treated to a massive upgrade with Google announcing some big improvements to its hugely popular email service. The changes are all focused on making sure the right people get the email you are trying to push out and should end the nightmare of hitting the “Send” button only to realise it’s heading right into the wrong contact’s inbox. Yes, we’ve all been there!

Perhaps the biggest addition in this latest Gmail release are new Avatar chips which will now appear alongside the recipient’s address when they are added to the message. As long as the person has a photo added to their Google account you’ll be able to see their face alongside their email address which should help to make sure the right contacts are about to receive your message.

Along with these visual changes there’s also the addition of a new right-click menu. This has been created to easily and quickly view a recipient’s full name and email address. Plus you’ll be able to edit contact names, copy email addresses and open a recipient’s information card without digging into endless settings.

Additionally, you can even use this menu to change how a recipient’s name is displayed which should help if you have contacts with similar or the same name.

Google says that it has also made it more obvious when users outside of your business have been added to your recipient list.

This means external contacts that you’ve interacted with before will be highlighted in a deep, yellow colour whilst external contacts that you have not interacted with before will also be highlighted along with an out of organisation avatar and warning banner.

Also, when hovering over or scrolling through contacts within the dropdown menu, you’ll notice a grey tone to better indicate where your mouse or keyboard is. Additionally, Gmail will automatically remove duplicate entries within the same fields, when dragging and dropping between the To, Cc, and Bcc fields.

Google has confirmed that this is Gmail upgrade will be available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers with the tech giant hoping to have it fully rolled out by the end of year.