Advertisement

News

What is Gmail’s dynamic email feature?

What is Gmail’s dynamic email feature?
Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney

  • Updated:

Gmail is one of Google’s flagship products. It is used by over 1.5 billion people around the world and for years has been regarded as the best free webmail client available.

Gmail on laptop and mobile

According to a recent G suite blog post, a rather huge step in Gmail’s evolution is coming on July 2. Dynamic emails promise to have a huge effect on the emails we receive. We’ve already covered Google’s plans for dynamic emails but with their general release now just a matter of days away, we thought it’d be a good idea to go through it all again.

Google’s Gmail dynamic emails explained

At the end of February, we told you about Google’s plans to add AMP (Accelerated Mobiles Pages) to Gmail. Basically, AMP is a new way of loading web pages specifically designed for mobile. The move is designed to make emails more fluid and able to update themselves over time, rather than remaining static. You can receive one of Google’s AMP emails and then when you check it again a week or two later, the information it contains could have changed.

Then at the end of March, we gave you a bit more information about what these special types of auto-updating and even interactive emails could contain. Dynamic emails, as Google calls them can include shopping carts, surveys and forms, and many other types of interactive widgets. One of the particularly cool widgets Google was keen to point out was the Google Docs teamwork integration widget. Dynamic emails make it possible for you to comment on Docs you’re working on with others, which is a huge improvement on simply receiving an email every time you’re mentioned in a comment.

Image via: GSuite Updates

As is usually the case when internet giants make big changes, the main difference you’ll notice with dynamic emails is that you’ll be able to get a lot more done without having to leave Gmail itself. Google says, “With dynamic email, you can easily take action directly from within the message itself, like RSVP to an event, fill out a questionnaire, browse a catalog or respond to a comment.”

Google has promised to perform security and privacy vetting on all companies who want clearance for AMP support so that they can send dynamic emails. In fact, the company has already granted clearance to a number of companies including booking.com. Doodle, OYO Rooms, and Pinterest.

The fact that Google has already signed up a number of partners means that come July 2, when the feature will be enabled automatically for all users, you’ll likely receive a few dynamic emails from one of the pre-approved partners. Don’t expect too many though, as the vetting process needs to rigorous to allay privacy fears, so could take some time.

Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney is a news reporter for Softonic, keeping readers up to date on everything affecting their favorite apps and programs. His beat includes social media apps and sites like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat. Patrick also covers antivirus and security issues, web browsers, the full Google suite of apps and programs, and operating systems like Windows, iOS, and Android.

Latest from Patrick Devaney

Editorial Guidelines