The changes aren’t big, but they make your inbox look a bit more like mobile Gmail.
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As the old saying goes, if you want something done right, do it yourself. Michael Legget, a former design lead for Google who now works for Nori, has put that into practice when it comes to Gmail’s interface.
Scrolling through his inbox was “like Lucky Charms got spewed all over the screen,” he told Fast Company in an interview published Thursday. To solve that problem, Legget created Simplify Gmail, a free Chrome extension meant to, well, simplifyGmail.
Here are a few tweaks you’ll see in Simplify:
- Left and right sidebars hidden behind menu buttons.
- A minimized search bar.
- Compose in the bottom right, similar to mobile interface.
- Calendar, Keep, Tasks condensed in the bottom right.
- Gmail logo in the top left gone.
Google wasn’t immediately available for comment. Gmail launched in 2004, and since then has amassed more than 1.5 billion users per month. Earlier this month, Gmail became Google’s sole focus when it retired Inbox.
Originally published April 26, 11:52 a.m. PT.
Update, 12:12 p.m PT: Added more details.
