Gmail Gets Translation Capabilities, More Storage Space
Good news for fans of Google’s email client Gmail: it now has automatic message translation capabilities and it lets you store more data.
Automatic Message Translation used to be a Gmail Labs experiment that did precisely what its name suggests: it detected when a message was in another language than your own and it offered to translate that message for you. Experiments that prove to be quite useful eventually graduate out of Gmail Labs and become an integral part of Gmail. This is precisely what happened with Automatic Message Translation.
Google Translate Product Manager Jeff Chin on the success of Automatic Message Translation:
“We heard immediately from Google Apps for Business users that this was a killer feature for working with local teams across the world. Some people just wanted to easily read newsletters from abroad. Another person wrote in telling us how he set up his mom’s Gmail to translate everything into her native language, thus saving countless explanatory phone calls (he thanked us profusely). I continue to use it to participate in discussions with the global Google offices I often visit.”
So to sum it up, Automatic Message Translation graduated from Gmail Labs and is now part of Gmail. When you get an email in another language than your own, Gmail will offer to translate it for you. You will see a prompt in the header at the top of the email message. If you don’t see the prompt, click on the down arrow next to reply and select “Translate message” from the dropdown menu.
Some Gmail users are bilingual and don’t need Gmail’s recently acquired translation capabilities. They will be glad to know that they can click on “Turn off for: [language]” and Gmail will no longer offer to translate messages in that language.
If you frequently receive emails in a foreign language, you can click on “Always Translate” and they will automatically be translated as they come in.
Moving on, Gmail now lets you store more data. The Gmail Team recently announced that Gmail’s free storage web up from 7.5 to 10GB.
Automatic Message Translation used to be a Gmail Labs experiment that did precisely what its name suggests: it detected when a message was in another language than your own and it offered to translate that message for you. Experiments that prove to be quite useful eventually graduate out of Gmail Labs and become an integral part of Gmail. This is precisely what happened with Automatic Message Translation.
Google Translate Product Manager Jeff Chin on the success of Automatic Message Translation:
“We heard immediately from Google Apps for Business users that this was a killer feature for working with local teams across the world. Some people just wanted to easily read newsletters from abroad. Another person wrote in telling us how he set up his mom’s Gmail to translate everything into her native language, thus saving countless explanatory phone calls (he thanked us profusely). I continue to use it to participate in discussions with the global Google offices I often visit.”
So to sum it up, Automatic Message Translation graduated from Gmail Labs and is now part of Gmail. When you get an email in another language than your own, Gmail will offer to translate it for you. You will see a prompt in the header at the top of the email message. If you don’t see the prompt, click on the down arrow next to reply and select “Translate message” from the dropdown menu.
Some Gmail users are bilingual and don’t need Gmail’s recently acquired translation capabilities. They will be glad to know that they can click on “Turn off for: [language]” and Gmail will no longer offer to translate messages in that language.
If you frequently receive emails in a foreign language, you can click on “Always Translate” and they will automatically be translated as they come in.
Moving on, Gmail now lets you store more data. The Gmail Team recently announced that Gmail’s free storage web up from 7.5 to 10GB.
