Gmail team has finally released Gmail’s new look. Gmail new look was earlier available through two themes namely, Preview and Preview (dense).

Gmail’s new looks seems to be one more stepping stone towards bringing a consistent look throughout all Google products after the launch of Google+ (Google Plus). This new look features Streamlined conversations, Elastic density, New HD themes, Smarter navigation and Better search.

How to switch to Gmail’s New Look?

The new look is available to everyone and is now a opt-in feature. You will find a link to switch to the new look in your Gmail. If you don’t see the link to switch simply refresh Gmail once. Personally we liked the new look and features very much.

Watch the video to get an overview of the improvements.

New Gmail features in details

The Gmail Team has posted on Official Gmail Blog explaining the new features of the new Gmail look.

Streamlined conversations: Conversation view has been completely redesigned to help you read through your email threads. You’ll now see profiles pictures for your contacts, so it’s easier to keep track of who said what. We also stripped out as much as possible so you can focus on communicating with your friends and colleagues.
Elastic density: We know that you use Gmail from a variety of screen sizes and devices, so now the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using. If you prefer a denser view all the time, you can change your density manually in the Settings menu.
New HD themes: Themes have been completely rebuilt to enable us to bring you a new set of beautiful high-resolution themes with imagery provided by iStockphoto. We’ve updated most of the old favorites as well and your theme will be automatically carried over to the new look. Go to the Settings menu to take another look at themes and choose the one that fits you best.
Smarter navigation: The navigation panel on the left keeps your labels and chat contacts in view. It’s also more customizable: you can resize the labels and chat areas if you want to see more, or hide the chat area entirely via the chat icon in the lower left. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate around the user interface.
Better search: Click the drop-down in the search box to see a new advanced search panel, which makes it easier and faster to find exactly what you’re looking for. You can use the same panel to create a filter from any search in just a few clicks.

Below is a screenshot of the new Gmail HD Themes.

iStockphoto has partnered with Gmail to offer high-resolution images for Gmail HD Themes. If you want to buy iStockphoto credits (50 or more credits) at 20% discount use the discount code GMA1120.

With the release of Google+ (Google Plus), Google’s attempt to take on Facebook, Google has bought in a minimalist and refreshing new look across many of its services. The combination of black navigation bar with the blue search buttons or orange buttons looks nice to the eyes. First it was Google search, now its time for Gmail. This new refreshing look is now available to all Gmail users from today.

The new Gmail look as of yet is available as Gmail Theme and is thus optional to all. Two new themes: “Preview” and “Preview (Dense)” are now available for users to test out the new look. You can easily switch to the new look by accessing the Themes feature of Gmail.

First, Log in to your Gmail account and click on the gear icon present on the top right corner of the page, select “Settings” from the drop-down.

Click on the Themes tab, scroll down and select the theme named Preview or Preview (Dense), whichever you like. The new theme will be applied.

If you don’t like the new look, you can always go back to the old Classic look or whichever theme you were using.

Here’s what the thread list looks like:

And in conversation view:

Here’s what Chris Wiggins, Creative Director, Google has to say about the Google design and experience:

The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness.
Focus: Whether you’re searching, emailing or looking for a map, the only thing you should be concerned about is getting what you want. Our job is to provide the tools and features that will get you there quickly and easily. With the design changes in the coming weeks and months, we’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.
Elasticity: In the early days, there was pretty much just one way to use Google: on a desktop computer with an average-sized monitor. Over a decade later, all it takes is a look around one’s home or office at the various mobile devices, tablets, high-resolution monitors and TVs to see a plethora of ways to access the web. The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from one device to another and have a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
Effortlessness: Our design philosophy is to combine power with simplicity. We want to keep our look simple and clean, but behind the seemingly simple design, use new technologies like HTML5, WebGL and the latest, fastest browsers to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you.

What is your opinion about all these changes? Do you like the new look?

If you’ve got a working Gmail account with lots of important emails, you might want to back up all your emails. Around 500,000 Gmail users lost access to their inbox over the weekend. Some of Gmail’s users found all their Gmail stuff vanished. While, we haven’t experienced the issue personally, but according to reports, the glitch effectively reset some accounts, treating their owners as new users complete with welcome messages.

The last update from the App Status Page is as follows:

We have revised downward our estimate of the total number of users affected by this issue from 0.08% to 0.02% of Google Mail users. Access has been restored for one third of the affected users. The remaining 0.013% of accounts are being restored on an ongoing basis, and we expect the issue to be resolved for everyone within 12 hours.

Some ways to back up your Gmail are as follows [via Lifehacker]:

1. Use any desktop IMAP email client like Thunderbird, or Outlook, or Apple Mail. You can see the complete list of supported IMAP clients by Gmail here.
2. Forward all your messages to your secondary email account.
3. Use Getmail: Read here for a simple how-to by Matt Cutts.

Online backup service Backupify is taking the opportunity to entice new users with a coupon code (savegmail) for a year of free backup, including Gmail.

From now until 11:59pm Eastern time on March 1, Backupify is giving away a free year of Backupify Pro 100 service to anybody who asks for it.

See more details on the Backupify blog.

Do you use any other method to back up your email? Share with us.

If you want to stay safe from pesky privacy hacks that sniffs out your confidential data, then the best way is to use an encrypted connection (HTTPS) to connect with all your private sensitive data. Gmail was helping you for a long time now through “Always use https.”

Now its time for Hotmail users to rejoice as beginning today, Hotmail is also providing you with the option to enhance security of your entire Hotmail session with HTTPS data encryption (via secure socket layers, or SSL). Hotmail till now was only using HTTPS data encryption to help secure your Hotmail sign-in.

Today’s update joins a series of other security updates, with which Hotmail offers advanced security safeguards to help protect your email account from hijackers and fraud. Starting today, other services that includes SkyDrive, Photos, Docs, and Devices pages will all automatically use SSL encryption, transferring all their data over HTTPS.

How To Enable HTTPS or “Always use HTTPS” In Your Hotmail Account?

If you want to enable HTTPS for your Hotmail inbox, calendar, and contacts, simply visit  https://account.live.com/ManageSSL.

Now enable the radio button “Use HTTPS automatically” and click on the Save button.

Note: If you are Windows Live Mail user than you may be left out of the party as HTTPS is still not available for them. If they try to enable “Use HTTPS automatically,” they will receive the following error:

Also, Microsoft has clarified that some connections to Hotmail won’t be available if you turn on HTTPS, including:

• Outlook Hotmail Connector
• Windows Live Mail
• The Windows Live application for Windows Mobile (version 6.5 and earlier) and Symbian

Hopefully they will support HTTPS security for the above technologies in the future.

Gmail groups all replies with their original message, creating a single conversation or thread, popularly known as Conversation View. In Conversation View, each new message stacked on top of the ones that arrived before it, so that the newest message is always the one you see first. Conversation view helps to keep the mailbox tidy and compact which otherwise may be cluttered. The email threading and grouping also makes reading and replying the email messages easier.

Since the début of Gmail 6 years ago in 2004, conversation view has been mandatory with no option to disable or turn off the email threading conversation view. Which was a turn-off for many people who hate Conversation View and wants to view their inbox in the traditional way. Taking into consideration those users, Gmail has now made conversation view an optional feature, thus offering more control to its users. Now any user who wants e-mail messages viewable in the traditional way, i.e, all messages and replies split and listed by date sequentially in the mailbox can disable and turn off the conversation view.

Follow these steps to disable and turn off conversation view in Gmail:

Note: This option is also available for Google Apps users. This feature will be rolling out over the next few days so if you don’t see it immediately.

1. Login to your Gmail account.

2. Click on Settings (find it on the top right corner of the screen).

3. In the General tab, find the Conversation View section.

   

4. Click on the radio button of Conversation view off.

5. Click on Save Changes button.

To revert back the change and reactivate conversation view, follow the above steps till step 3 and in step 4 instead select “Conversation view on” option and click on Save Changes.

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and powerful email application that makes it easier to organize, secure and customize your mail. A new version of the desktop email client has been released, raising the version of the client to 3.1.3.

Thunderbird 3.1.3 fixes the following issues that were found in Thunderbird 3.1.2:

• Several fixes to improve stability and security, see the Security Advisory.
• Several fixes to improve stability.
• Several fixes to the user interface.

Mozilla Messaging provides Thunderbird 3.1 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages. You can get the latest version of Thunderbird 3.1 here.

Please note that from Mozilla Thunderbird version 3.1, it no longer supports versions of Windows prior to Windows 2000 (e.g. Windows 95, 98, ME, and NT) and Mac OS X versions prior to 10.4 Tiger. Linux requirements have also changed. Do make sure that compatibility mode for unsupported Windows platforms is disabled for the Thunderbird executable in Windows.

Are you using Gmail or Google Apps as your primary email for communication? Are you facing “Email overload” problem? You will be happy to know that Google is going to help you with the problem with Gmail’s new feature — Gmail Priority Inbox. With loads of emails coming in every day, it becomes really messy and unbearable at times. But, with Gmail Priority Inbox, managing the email inbox will become very easy by helping you kill email overload.

What is Gmail Priority Inbox?

Think Gmail Priority Inbox just like your personal assistant. Priority Inbox helps you focus on the email messages that really matters for you that too without you have to set up complex filters in your Gmail settings. Yes, you can previously do this with the Multiple Inboxes Gmail labs feature, but these new settings make things easier to understand and carry out. The three default sections here are: “Important & unread,” “Starred,” and “Everything else.”

[quote]Priority Inbox splits your inbox into three sections: “Important and unread,” “Starred” and “Everything else” As messages come in, Gmail automatically flags some of them as important. Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are important, including the people you email most (if you email Bob a lot, a message from Bob is probably important) and which messages you open and reply to (these are likely more important than the ones you skip over). And as you use Gmail, it will get better at categorizing messages for you.[/quote]

Where is Gmail Priority Inbox? I can’t find it.

Gmail Priority Inbox is in beta and Google is slowly rolling it out. Priority Inbox will be rolling out to all Gmail users, including those of you who use Google Apps, over the next week or so. Once you see the “New! Priority Inbox” link in the top right corner of your Gmail account (or the new Priority Inbox tab in Gmail Settings), take a look.

[via Gmail Blog ]

Mozilla Messaging has released the new update of the most popular email client Mozilla Thunderbird and now the version is 3.1.2. This releases fixes some stability issues and several user experience concerns.

Thunderbird 3.1.2 fixes the following issues in Thunderbird 3.1.1:

• Several fixes to improve stability.
• Several fixes to the user interface.

Bugzilla has listed 7 bugs fixed in this new release. Out of the 7 bugs, 2 bugs are rated as major, 4 as normal and 1 as minor. 3 bugs out of the 7 bugs affects only the Windows operating system, 1 of the bug affects the Mac and 1 bug affects the Linux system, and the rest 2 bugs affects all the supported operating systems.

It is always recommended that users keep up to date with the latest stability and support versions of Thunderbird. If you already have Thunderbird, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu within Thunderbird application.

Interested users can take a look at the official release notes, or the Bugzilla listing that lists all fixed bugs in the release.

Thunderbird 3.1.2 is now available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. All Thunderbird 2 users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Thunderbird 3.1.2.

Google is rolling out a new feature, that will allow you sign in to multiple Google accounts simultaneously from the same browser. When you go to the Google Accounts page, you might see a new option: “multiple sign-in“. If you don’t see this new feature under your Google Accounts management page, then it will probably be enabled soon for your account. Google is slowly enabling the “Multiple Sign-In” feature for all Google users.

If you click on the “Change” link (see screenshot above), Google informs you that this is an advanced feature and that it will only work for Gmail (or Google Mail), Google Calendar, Google Sites, Google Reader, Google Voice, App Engine and Google Code. When multiple sign-in is enabled for all your accounts, a drop-down is displayed next to your email address at the top of the page, so you can quickly switch to another new account of yours.

If you use multiple sign-in, the first account you sign in to will be your default account. If you visit other Google products that don’t support multiple accounts after you’ve signed in, you will automatically sign in to your default account for that product. If you sign out of any Google product while signed in to any account, you will be signed out of all your Google Accounts at once.

Warning: Enabling multiple sign-in will disable Offline products like Offline Gmail and Offline Calendar, as well as any browser bookmarks you’ve set to link to your accounts. If you use Offline Gmail, make sure to sync your offline mail before enabling multiple sign-in so you don’t lose any messages in your outbox. If you would like to continue using Offline Gmail, Offline Calendar, and browser bookmarks linked to your accounts, do not enable the multiple sign-in option. If you have already enabled multiple sign-in, you may disable it.

(Source: Google help center)

Of-course, you can use multiple browsers, Chrome’s incognito mode, IE8′s “new session” feature, multiple profiles, etc. as explained at this Google’s help center page. This help page also explains that Google’s services didn’t allow you to sign in to multiple accounts at the same time using the same browser as Google uses sign-in cookies that only lets you sign in with one account at a time.

But with the implementation of the new Google feature “multiple sign-in” is going to make things easier. You can easily now read your messages from two or more of your Gmail accounts by opening Gmail in different multiple tabs.

Thanks to Google Operating System for the update.

Gmail users have always wanted to have rich text signatures, after all they look cool, aren’t they? Google has finally heard the users and as of today Gmail users can use a rich text signature. This means that users will no longer be forced to use boring plain text to end their emails. Gmail users can now add links and images to the signature, as well as change the text’s format, font and color and make them more lively!

To change your boring plain text signature into rich text signature, simply login and click on “Settings” and scroll down to the “Signature” section. You’ll see a new signature editor that has the same functions when you compose an e-mail.

What’s even better than being able to use rich text signatures is that you can now use a different signature for each custom “From:” address you use. So, if you have more than one e-mail address associated with your Gmail account, you’ll be now able to choose a different signature for each one using the drop-down menu (Note: You will not see the menu, if you have only one e-mail address associated with your Gmail account).

Remember, if you want to use these cool new features, then you will have to use the rich version of Gmail. Lite version of Gmail, that is, the HTML and mobile versions of Gmail do not have any support for these two features. A plan text version of your primary account’s signature will continue to be used on these other versions of Gmail.

via Gmail Blog

Mozilla Thunderbird is a very popular desktop email client. Thunderbird email software was recently updated by its developers, Mozilla, to version 3. The update brought many new features and notable changes like better email account integration and configuration options, global search option, etc.

The next version of Thunderbird will be version 3.1 and the first alpha release, codenamed “Lanikai Alpha 1” confirms this. Mozilla has asked interested users to test the new alpha release version of the email client and give their opinion. The developer has also warned anyone from installing the email client in a productive environment as it is an alpha version that can contain bugs and other performance issues.

The most notable changes, according to the release notes, in Thunderbird 3.1 alpha are as follows:

• Several improvements to IMAP.
• Several fixes for Smart Folders, message filters, and attachment handling.
• Several design improvements and corrections to the user interface.
• Download Manager is now accessible as a menu item (Tools > Saved Files).
• Stability and memory improvements.

Bugzilla lists a total of 147 bug fixes and changes in Thunderbird 3.1 alpha of which 2 have been rated as blockers (highest rating) and 14 as critical. Several of the critical bugs fix issues when updating from Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 3. Others fix crashes and fix other issues.

If you are interested in trying out Thunderbird 3.1 alpha then you can download the email client from the official Mozilla Messaging website.

Before installing, make sure your computer meets the system requirements. Please note that Lanikai Alpha 1 no longer supports versions of Windows prior to Windows 2000 (e.g. Windows 95, 98, ME, and NT) and Mac OS X versions prior to 10.4 Tiger. Linux requirements have also changed. Do make sure that compatibility mode for unsupported Windows platforms is disabled for the Thunderbird executable in Windows.

Gmail is down again this morning. Frustration is spreading quickly via Twitter, as some users can’t access their email at all, while others are facing problem accessing their contacts and using chat.

Google has acknowledged the problem on their app status page:

We’re aware of a problem with Google Mail affecting a small subset of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Mail, but we’ve provided a workaround below. We will provide an update by September 24, 2009 8:59:00 PM UTC+5:30 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

You can access Gmail via IMAP.

The latest update on the situation can be found here.

The Mozilla Thunderbird development team (Mozilla Messaging) has released beta 4 of the upcoming Thunderbird 3 desktop email client. This new version of is available for download at the Mozilla Thunderbird website and are available for all supported operating systems like Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh and languages.

This release comes with many new features and improvements including a new email search feature with advanced filtering options, global search with autocomplete feature, smart folders, tabbed email messages, new add-ons manager (Tools > Add-ons) which can now be used to find, download, and install Thunderbird Add-ons which includes Extensions, Themes, and Plugins, improved address book, better Gmail integration with better recognition and integration of Gmail’s special folders such as Sent and Trash including non-English versions of Gmail and integration into Windows Vista’s search results. For Mac users, Thunderbird 3 beta 4 can import from Mail.app, read your OS X address book, and use Growl for new mail alerts.

Improvements have been made to overall performance and stability as well as web compatibility and sustainability. The way IMAP connections are handled has been improved in this version of Thunderbird as well. Thunderbird can now download IMAP messages by default in the background to allow for faster message loading and better offline operation.

Users who are interested in the new version and want to test the new features can download it from the Mozilla Thunderbird website. As this release is still a beta version, the usual precautions should be taken and should not be used in a production environment. The full release notes can be found at this link.

The Mozilla Thunderbird development team has released an important update for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. This upgrade includes one critical security fix that was reported by security researcher Dan Kaminsky. Compromise of SSL-protected communication vulnerability allows an attacker to obtain certificates that would function for any site they would like to target. More detail information about this vulnerability is available here.

Mozilla Thunderbird should automatically download the update upon its next start up. You can also manually update using the Help > Check For Updates function in the email client or visit the Mozilla Thunderbird website to download the update. This vulnerability was not only affecting the email client but also other Mozilla products including Firefox. Though this has been fixed in Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3.0.13, Thunderbird 2.0.0.23, SeaMonkey 1.1.18, NSS 3.12.3. So make sure that you are using the updated version of all the above products.

The release notes to this update is available here. Download link for all languages and system is available here.

With a single Google Account, you can use all the Google services, including the important ones like Gmail, Google Adsense or AdWords, Google Docs, etc. So, you can imagine what will happen if you happen to forget the password or the associated email address, or worse loosing your account by a successful hacking attempt. The common security options to avoid these scenarios are using a secondary email address and a security question that can be used to recover your Google account. But now, Google users are having another secure option to recover their account’s password. Google has added the ability to recover your password via text message.

How To Recover Your Google Account Password via Text Message?

To turn this on for your account, just sign in, select ‘Change Password Recovery Options,’ enter your cell phone number and click ‘Save.’

Next time you forget your password, enter your user name on the password-assistance page, and Google will text you a recovery code. No need to check another email account or even leave the page.

In general, it’s a good idea to add as many password recovery options to your Google Account as possible, like a secondary email address and security question. And don’t forget to keep them up-to-date. [ From the Official Gmail Blog]

Image courtesy: Official Gmail Blog