Gmail adds features, retires others

Graduation for Labs functionality

25 February 2010 9:19 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Google has taken inventory of the features present in the Labs section of its Gmail product and graduated a selection to full-time use, while removing others. The reasoning is that the Labs portion of Gmail had started to get a bit crowded - with more than 60 available. 11 have been taken out in different ways.

Graduating to full time use are Search Autocomplete, Go To Label, the Forgotten Attachment Detector, YouTube Previews, Custom Label Colors, and Vacation Dates. Those will now be part of Gmail for every user, regardless if they'd previously activated them in Labs or not.

A number of features have been removed from Labs without graduating, too. Muzzle, Fixed Width Font, Email Addict, Location in Signature and Random Signature have all disappeared with little hope of a return. Google says "These decisions were made based mainly on usage, taking feature polish and your feedback into account".

Google also says that it's got a pile of new Labs features in the pipeline, which is another reason for the spring clean. What Labs features would you like to see Google implement full-time in its Gmail poduct? Tell us in the comments.

Via: gmailblog.blogspot.com

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