Comments on: What I hate and love about Gmail

Gmail has a lot going for it, but why can't it offer an optional chronological interface like most email services and program?

[wotten-1]

As much as I detest "me too"s, Ditto and Ditto: Love positive aspects as described and definitely Hate the threaded "conversations". Often want to extract only a portion of an email to forward to others and always am uncomfortable with product forwarded: was it only what I highlighted or did the entire email get forwarded? Attempting email surgery is always an adventure when going for part of one email that itself is part of many "conversations". Yech!
Wish you success, Larry, in convincing Google to provide option for reverse chronological order. And soon! Thanks---and please keep up the good fight!

[designink]

You don't have to forward an entire conversation; use the drop-down arrow in the upper-right corner of an email to forward part of a conversation. That, and google shows you exactly what message they are forwarding.

[wingdagger]

This is a lame argument. Gmail rocks as is. If you don't like it, then you just don't understand it. Quit whining or go use another service.

[pentest]

Speaking of lame arguments....

[Cheese McBeese]

That is what a Google fan-boy would post. No intelligent response, just a GFY because "I love everything Google" statement.

[terminalblue]

when gmail was firt launched, it big thing was that it threaded convos, and for the most part, it is still one of its best features. five years ago, this was pretty revolutionary. I have found that now, everything should be threaded, and when i switch between my WM6 phone that threads SMS and my slider that doesnt i find myself frustrated to no end because i have to go back and forth between screens to get back to the messages.

if you dont like it so much then use Gmail FREE POP3 access and get your email through outlook. all threading does is make life a little easier for those of us with bad memories

[larrymagid]

I made that point in the column. One of the workarounds is to use Outlook or any other email program.

[TimK65]

Threaded E-mail was not "revolutionary" five years ago. Thunderbird and other E-mail clients had had E-mail threading for a couple of years at that point. It might have been revolutionary in the Webmail space, but it was not revolutionary if you had a wider view of E-mail.

And there's no criticism of threading, in and of itself, in the column. The point is that Gmail doesn't give you any other choice, any other way to view your E-mail should you want to do so. That sucks.

[nic.disassembly]

i'm not understanding this post...if you click on "All Mail", you have all your "archived" mail right there...in reverse chronological order. you simply click for "old, older, or oldest" to keep going back and look for the itme period you're looking for..

what (sorta, but not too much) annoys me as a 4 year Gmail user, is when importing my gmail account into Outlook (or more recently iLife's "Mail" on the Mac), this "all mail" folder comes along for the ride...18,000 messages....not including ones that were embedded in "conversation" had to be imported automatically...i wish there was a way to choose with folders get imported via IMAP while retaining them on the server for future use if need be...i'd have imported all labels except that pesky All Mail folder...

[mkone_og]

Your desktop email client should allow you to subscribe to specific folders. You can choose not to subscribe to certain imap folders. By default, most email clients subscribe you to all folders though.

[jefflac]

Threaded conversations are good for me - but I understand not everyone likes it like that.

However, you can get threaded conversations in Outlook by sorting by arranging by conversation. It does a slightly better job of forking conversations than Gmail.

[techdribble]

the conversation view is what stops me from using the web interface and sticking to using a desktop email client. I spent to much time trying to find emails that gmail had attached to another email that was not related. The fact that Google doesn't make this optional is just arrogant . Sure some people love it and that is fine but for those of us that dont give the option to turn off.

[skillingssucks]

Yeah, they're arrogant because they won't make it the way every other mail program and web based mailer in the world does it. If you don't like it, then don't use it, you have plenty of other choices. Maybe the others are arrogant because they don't offer conversation view? [CNET editors' note: Prohibited content removed.]

[kcotham]

I just wish that it had an option to play nice with Mail on Mac OS X. It creates all these extra folders on Mail. It won't allow you to Undo a delete message either, you have to search for it in "All Mail". I agree, GMail could definitely be better. People think in chronological order, not in searches. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't work well in practice. Their interface is great if you ONLY use the web mail interface. I almost NEVER use web mail. But that's the way it is now days. Most people I know wouldn't know how to set up an e-mail client if their lives depended on it. If you want to delete messages permanently, you have to do it though the stupid web mail. Do it on Mail and they come right back. That's with IMAP, POP is more straightforward, but you lose continuity between machines if you use POP.

*GMail user since introduction and have been using IMAP on Mail.app with mixed results

[calculatorwatch]

you don't even need an email client if you use google gears or chrome, i don't see what's so bad about people no longer using email clients, i say let the easier solution win if both have the same functionality

[minhaajrehman]

Actually i agree with gmail. I prefer threaded discussions. Wish we had it in Thunderbird.

[jljljljlj]

Tip on the 'all mail/' in IMAP: there is an easy solution. Install Advanced IMAP settings from Labs.

This will give you the ability to disable any gmail folder showing up in IMAP.

[tismeinaz]

Personally the one thing you hate is the primary reason I have gmail. I like the threaded messages. And I like them staying in place with the replies attached in order received. I belong to group lists and sometimes there are 50 replies to a message and it used to be a pain to open a response and not know what it was a response to. If they were to move to the top any time someone responded - any responses sent in with a different subject line would cause a similar problem.

[rjg147]

With all due respect, the last thing gmail needs to do is help soothe the old timers who can't accept change.

[larrymagid]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that change, by definition, is improvement? Actually the threaded interface is not at all new. It's been around for a long time and there are lots of "old timers" who like it and some relatively young people who don't. It's about personal preference and all I suggested is that Google give people the choice. Haven't said that, I recognize that there is a value in the conversational interface but I also feel that it sometimes makes it harder to immediately find the latest message, especially for those of us who get a lot of email.

[gp2792]

I love the "with all due respect" followed by an insult. The article concerns a belief in choice, which most of the people in this forum ramble on and on about when it comes to everyone's favorite whipping boy, MS. However, when it comes to the halo twins, apple and google, the response often is the opposite. It's ok that google makes these choices for us, because they must know best. Well, with all due respect, that's a dumb argument ;)

I am not an "old timer" and I hate the conversational view. I hate it because it stinks on a mobile phone and it is often easy to miss a new email when gmail's view doesn't pop it to the front. I started clicking "all mail" for a while, but didn't like the extra step, particularly on my smartphone. Solution for me: forward all email to another free email app and "send as" my gmail acct. Works perfectly.

[pentest]

Don't forget you are allowing Goolag to profit off your privacy. That is a bonus!

[OziIan]

Ummm ... Just use the option you mentioned - have Gmail filter your emails then send them to your fav email client, then you can do what you like. Works for me. :-)

[sexy_sofie]

this comment doesn't exist because i've decided to stop using all web interfaces i don't like. if'n y'all don't like it then don't read this.
i agree with the article. what other users prefer is a lame, copout, bs, excuse. way too many developers and managers use this to avoid criticism and force their agenda on us "rebellious lunatic fringe". it's a shame inducing control mechanism. y'all should be ashamed of yerselves for not appreciating what we do. how dast ye peons not like what they do for us. everybody does it, you should to. now, be good little sheep and stop complaining.

[gerrrg]

I like the gmail conversation thread.

When you're trying to keep up an email conversation, it's a lot easier when they're grouped together, as opposed to having to scroll through or do a specific search for emails from one person or another.

If you've spent enough time on the internet leaving comments and replying to a comment, you're already used to conversation threads.

This is one of the things that makes Gmail unique, and why I've migrated my most important contacts and emails to Gmail, and why I have a G1 phone. It just works better for me.

[pentest]

Forwarding your mail to a yahoo or hotmail account is a bad solution as your new account will get plastered with spam.

Just use Thunderbird if you don't care that Google is tracking and monitoring you.

[larrymagid]

Actually there would be no additional spam on Outlook if the only account it accesses is the Gmail account. It's possible with Yahoo but if you don't give out your Yahoo address it's not likely to get much spam either.

[designink]

I don't understand your complaint - my gmail is always listed in chronological order, even threaded conversations. When a new reply is added to a conversation, the email appears at the top of my inbox and not where the original email was located.

[larrymagid]

I tend to have pretty long "conversations." Lots of messages from the same people. Just seems easier to me to have it on top instead of somewhere inside the thread. As I said, I want it to be an option. I never suggested they abandon the threaded interface.

[filby]

While designink is right about the new reply appearing at the top of the inbox, I believe it only stays there temporarily until supplanted by another reply to that same thread or some other thread. I agree with Larry on this -- I've missed some replies to emails because they got archived before I had a chance to read them. One workaround is to use Google Talk in conjunction with Gmail. Talk provides a nice notification of any new Gmail that arrives, but if you blink you'll miss it.

[filby]

Gmail Notifier is another way to spot new incoming emails.

[trekdaniii]

I don't think Larry understands designink's argument, which is the same as mine. The statement:

<i>messages, responses and responses to responses all wind up within the same message, which may or may not show up on top, even if it's the most recent message to arrive</i>

is not true. Maybe it's not phrased the way you mean it. But the most recent message is always at the top, inside of its conversation thread. If there are conversations above it, that means those conversations have more recent messages in them. When a conversation receives a new reply, it gets bumped to the top. And saying it "may or may not show up" implies that GMail's code is buggy, that it doesn't give consistent behavior, which is also not true. I understand if you don't like the threaded setup, sometimes it's useful to see individual messages, but your argument just doesn't make sense

[ottonomy]

No, trekdaniii, Larry understands. You just happen to be wrong. Apparently you don't use Gmail enough to notice that it often fails to move a conversation with a new message to the top of the inbox, or that it is indeed sometimes buggy. Larry's statement comes from experience. Yours comes from ignorance of his experience.

Conversation threading is nice in concept. For those whose email usage consists largely of back and forth chatter, it must be quite a boon. The problem is that it often fails miserably, because Google uses only the subject line to decide grouping of messages. I have brand new messages from customers getting lumped into month old conversations, because they were sent with no subject, just like last time. Then if I reply, and take the time to create a new and more pertinent subject, my email escapes the conversation. Or say I get twenty or thirty messages a week from someinternetforum.com, all entitled "Reply to your post". Gmail puts them all into a thread, but only until it apparently randomly decides that the conversation has gone on long enough. Then it will sometimes group new ones with older conversations bearing that same subject. Buggy.

If Google would let people selectively move messages in and out of conversations or let people exempt certain senders' messages from becoming threaded, I don't think you would hear so many people frustrated by this. It's not about old-timers stuck in their ways. It's about Google not getting something right, and fanboys who can't conceive of people having more diverse or complex ways of utilizing email than their conversations about gaming card frame rates.

[trekdaniii]

Ottonomy, I guess we've had very different experiences then. I've been using GMail since 2005 as my primary email account. I started out just tinkering, then made it my primary personal account, then started forwarding my college email to it, and now I forward all my work email to it as well. It has handled all of these tasks perfectly and without buggy behavior like randomly assigning emails to conversations. For example, I've never had it randomly group messages together just because they both didn't have a subject.

I don't hear "so many people frustrated by this." I hear a few vocal people in the minority, who can't or won't accept change. These same people have decried Gmail from the beginning. They also occasionally come out and demand that Gmail put folders in, because they just don't understand the concept of labels. These people haven't gotten their way yet, and I hope they never do. Gmail is a unique experience. If you'd like the same old user experience from 1995, Google has been generous enough to let you use any email client you like for free with their service. Go wild with your folders and chronological messages using that.

[ottonomy]

trekdaniii, can I ask what position you are in to have any notion what percentage of Gmail users are frustrated by the inability to turn off conversation threading? You speak of us being a vocal minority who can't or won't accept change, who have decried Gmail from the beginning. This "they" you write of as a collective of every complainant about Gmail is a fictitious group invented by you as a straw man. I sent my first Gmail invite on January 8, 2005. I have sent hundreds since. I am a Gmail evangelist, so to speak. I use Gmail accounts for primary communication, for business, for keeping up with forums, for filtering and forwarding email, and even for (cough)file storage. I make extensive use of labels, prowl the Gmail blog several times a week, and try out new features as they appear in Labs. I still think conversation threading is a good idea, but as implemented in Gmail it has some critical failures which cause no end of annoyance to to even experienced and happy Gmail users.

If you doubt the number of people who find this frustrating, try typing "turn off conv" into Google's homepage (without the quotes). See the results, currently 13.5 million for "turn off conversation view". Then ignore the few people who actually DON'T understand threading, and carefully read the experiences of those who do, but have legitimate reasons that it screws up their day when it fails. Most of these people would be happy with simple modifications to it, for example, a button or action to move a message out of a particular conversation, or to add it to one. Perhaps a filter to keep certain senders unthreaded, as they can't be bothered to re-subject an email when the conversation has moved on...

[Sir_Sid]

The way it keeps replies in one message is still one of my favorite features. I wish other programs could do it like that.

[greefus]

I've had a love-love relationship with Gmail ever since it was introduced in 2004 because I've always used it with Thunderbird using pop 3. Ever since they introduced IMAP it's been on a whole different level of fantastic. How can anyone complain about something so free and awesome. Why on earth are you using webmail if you are a CNET writer? How often are you checking your email on a computer different then your own? I've only owned a computer since 2000 and I'm not a computer science guy. It's not that hard people.

[larrymagid]

At home I mostly use it with Outlook but not when I travel. The answer to your question is "pretty often." Sometimes I use it with Yahoo as I suggest in my column.

[johnpent]

I completely love GMAIL. I use it personally, and I use google apps in biz for control of a number of busienss web sites. Love it on a mobile. Use it on the iphone imap and on the browser. Cannot wait for the google gmail app for iphone. Love the calendar. Love the stock. Should buy some more at this price.

The forwarding to Yahoo. That fails as yahoo thinks too many regular emails i get in are spam.

Used to feel the same way about Yahoo, but no more. Hate their stock, too.