, perhaps primary among them, is the non-intuitiveness of its design. Right now, I’m having an issue with the menu on the left side of the screen, the one listing the various categories of other screens I could summon (Inbox, Starred, Snooze etc.) . I would like to arrange it so that “JUNK” shows up mainly because they throw out all junk mail in 30 days, and I often forget to check my junk file if I don’t see it. There’s plenty of room, because they list categories I don’t use or even understand (“meet” “hangout” etc–why would I want to meet or hangout with people when all I use Gmail for is to check my email?) and “JUNK” is buried somewhere underneath these things. If I try long enough, I can sometimes remember how to access the invisible categories like JUNK, but often not, and it’s impossible (I think) to re-order or to eliminate these categories. Does any Gmail user have a fix for this problem? All I need is “Inbox” “Sent” and “Junk”, preferably at the top of the left portion of my screen. Thanks.
Just coincidentally, last night I was at dinner with a person who does pretty high level computer security. She said Gmail was “the worst” in terms of the amount of info it collected from its users.
Much of the discussion was well over my head. Sorry for no assistance as to your specific question.
There is no reason to use the Gmail website to read mail; get an email client for your computer instead. I use Thunderbird:
Are you talking about desktop Gmail? You can click and drag the Spam folder up above the Less (or More) item. Or you can click the Gear, Show All Settings, and choose the Labels tag. The same process in reverse can get rid of folders you don’t use.
The settings also have a tab called “Chat and Meet” where you can turn off both Hangouts and Meet. I did that a long time ago. I also made it where all my unread messages wind up on top (in the Inbox tab). And I enabled a theme I’ve used for years–the one that looks like an actual desk top.
Gmail is garbage, IMHO. However, it’s handy if you need a “throw away” email address for something.
I hate the Gmail UI but that’s OK because I never use it. I’ve always used an Outlook client, or as another poster said, Thunderbird is an option. To me Gmail is just a mail transport service.
The problem I have with them is their ridiculous security paranoia. Aside from spurious security warnings about alleged break-ins (no, you idiots, that was just me from another device!) as of the end of May they are disabling simple password logins and will require either Oauth2 compliance or “Google sign-in”, which is potentially a big problem for those of us using POP3 or IMAP clients.
Many of us are using older versions of Office Outlook and see no need to be forced to upgrade. In some cases that may require upgrading the OS as well, a cascade of huge complications that are entirely unnecessary. Why can’t Gmail users make their own damn decisions about how much security they feel they really need?
I use Gmail because it works on all my devices…desktop, laptop, android phone, iPad. Yes, the UI is a bit different across the various operating systems, and it’s definitely not very intuitive, but it works okay enough for me.
I definitely prefer Thunderbird over Outlook, but will Thunderbird read and sync with Google contacts?
I have never been able to get this to work. I have the Spam label set to ‘show if unread’. This works just fine.
Is gmail’s plain old desktop web browser interface going to change?
Sorry, not seeing the
under the gear tab. Can you be more precise?
Not under the gear button. In the full settings. So it’s gear > Show All Settings > Chat and Meet.
I’m guessing Google wants to limit the amount their services are used for nefarious purposes and implementing more modern security protocols is one way to do that. They announced this change in 2014 and gave folks plenty of time to change.
Outlook 2016 and Thunderbird both should work with the change.
Do you have email accounts that don’t work on some devices?
I don’t think there is a combination of device, client and server that doesn’t work, but I’d love to educated.
(There are many reasons to use or not use Gmail but interoperability is not one of them; most people/services have email figured out by now)
Not sure what they announced in 2014, but I had no indication that the “allow lesser security” option was going away until I got an email from them last month.
According to the email, no, the oldest version of Outlook that provides the needed Oath2 or Google sign-in security is Outlook 2019. Office 2019 is only supported on Windows 10 or later. So for some of us, it would be a cascade of major updates, just because Google won’t let us log in any more with a simple password.
This is not so much a problem for me, since my needs are simple and I could just switch to Thunderbird, but it’s a huge problem for a friend who runs a small business and keeps a massive number of customer files on Outlook.
I’m looking at a possible workaround where it may still be possible to use older versions of Outlook if one enables two-factor authentication and then uses the Gmail “app password” feature.
No, I don’t. I have just two email accounts, and they work on all my devices, albeit my second email account doesn’t have a user interface for all my devices. I have to find a 3rd-party email client to read those emails. (Not a big problem, but still another step.)
That was my main point…that Gmail has a client for any and all devices, and it (the Gmail client) works seamlessly with Google Contacts and Google Calendar. When I get a new device, I don’t have to fiddle-faddle with an email client to make sure that it reads and syncs with my contacts and calendar.
And that’s why I don’t use Thunderbird, and why I posted my earlier question about T-bird working with Google Contacts without much configuration.
Oops - you are correct.
Sometimes technology moves beyond your hardware (I’m looking at my 5 year old Android phone which is breaking down since I cannot install the newer versions of the OS). Software and security developers can only support so much. I’ll buy a new phone soon and deal with it.
BTW, that friend could save all those emails in a PST and switch to Thunderbird for future correspondence.
There’s also the possibility of migrating the entire database (a whole bunch of big PST files) to Thunderbird, but that’s a scary proposition that is fraught with peril! And having your customer files divided between two different platforms is a major PITA!
I’m hoping I can get the two-factor authentication workaround I described above to work with the new Outlook.
This is why CRMs exist (and project management tools). 
Email is an inefficient way to store your company data and doesn’t scale well (at all).
Oh, absolutely! I’ve helped this person out by poking the Windows registry to expand the maximum PST file size and re-organizing the data into a structured set of PSTs, but Outlook was never intended for this sort of application. But this is a small business and typical CRM tools would be overkill; what they ideally need is something like a Microsoft Access database, but that presents a big learning curve. But with the combination of Outlook and Excel, they get by pretty well within its scalability limitations. The ability to use Excel as an ODBC source for mail/merge, for example, is invaluable.
I’ve helped several of my friends with their small businesses over many years and I completely understand. But as Danny Glover says, I’m getting too old for this shit. 
This worked fine for me in the past with Thunderbird, and should work with any other app. You just generate an app-specific password and paste the long hex string it gives you into your client. Easy, and far more secure than other methods (though not as good as true 2-fac everywhere).