Old Gmail Version to Be Discontinued, Current Version's Looks Tweaked

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 13 Aug 2010

If you have been a Gmail user for a long enough time, you surely remember the old version of Google, the one that was launched way back in 2007. If you are a new Gmail user, then you are familiar only with the current Gmail version. If you’re curious to see how the old version looked like, you can still do so. All you have to do is click the “older version” link way down at the bottom (check out the image below).


You can still do this now. The link to the old version of Gmail is still available now – it will not be available for long because Google has decided to drop the old Gmail version. Mountain View-based search engine giant Google decided to retire the old Gmail version starting this September.

When you click the “older version” link, you get the following message: “You're using an old version of Gmail which will be retired in September. At that point, you'll be redirected to a basic HTML view. To get faster Gmail and the newest features, please upgrade to a modern browser.”

Moving on, the current Gmail 2.0 version has received a minor facelift. Here’s what’s changed:

- The Contacts and Tasks links are now present in the top left hand corner, right under the Gmail logo. If you don’t want to see these links, click the – (minus) button to near the right edge of “Mail”.
- There’s a new “Compose mail” button underneath
- A smaller header area that puts the first message in your inbox about 16 pixels higher on the screen than before


In related Gmail news, you should know that Google recently rolled out multiple account sign-in for Gmail. You can sign into two Gmail accounts from the same browser window, then toggle between them from the new accounts menu in the upper right hand corner of Gmail. Or you can open a tab for one account, and another for the secondary account.


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