Back in November 2008 I was very glad to announce that Google released themes for Gmail, thus saving you the bother of having to rely on your own coding skills to change the way the email client works. At the time there were only some 30 themes to choose from, but as time went by, Google released more and more themes for Gmail. The Mountain View-based search engine giant even released a Random theme that mixes and matches colors from existing themes and comes up with something new.

Today I am very glad to announce that Google has taken Gmail customization to the next level by introducing Custom themes. You know that if you want to get rid of the simple white background on Google.com, you can set a custom image for Google Search. Well, you can now do the same with Gmail – you can now pick the picture that will be used as the Gmail background.

On Wednesday, Google Software Engineer Greg Bullock explained that “we heard that many of you wanted to bring an even more personal touch by setting your own [Gmail] background” and announced that “over the next couple of days we are rolling out a new Custom themes section with two options, Light and Dark where you can do just that.

There are a variety of images you can use to customize the way Gmail looks: you can pick one of several featured images, you can select a picture from your Picas Web Albums, you can pick a photo from your Android-powered phone, you can upload a photo from your computer, or you can paste the URL of an image posted online.

Words are pointless right now. Why you ask? Because we’ve got video! Here’s a quick look at the new Custom Gmail themes feature.