The Gmail app for Android has picked up several new features over the past few months, prominent among them beingHelp Me Write, with several other AI functions expected to land through Workspace Labs in the future. Apart from these significant inclusions, a minor visual changemade headlines in Junewhen Google decided to replace the red Gmail icon in the notification shade with a dynamic theming-enabled icon. Following backlash from many app users, the change wasreversed not much later. Google’s back to experimenting again, or so we think, as the red icon in the notification shade has disappeared, but this time in favor of a static blue option.
This bizarre change is bundled with Gmail version2023.11.26.x, per9to5Google, though the Gmail team hasn’t officially commented on it yet. While switching from the easily identifiable red icon to one that matches the system theme is understandable, using a solid light blue icon seems odd. This leads us to believe that this change was likely the result of a mistake, and developers could change things up again fairly soon.
As you can see above, regardless of what the system theme color is, the Gmail icon in the notifications pane remains unchanged. This could definitely take some time to get used to. Meanwhile, some apps can set the color of their notification icon (different from the status bar icon) to match the system theme. In this scenario, Gmail’s distinctively red icon has the benefit of standing out and grabbing your attention toward an important email. There’s also the obvious visual appeal of having a different color for some notifications, even if it doesn’t always adhere to the Material You guidelines.
This newly surfaced shade of blue doesn’t have any association with the Gmail brand, either, as 9to5 rightly points out. With this in mind, it shouldn’t take long for the developers to fix this. What’s unclear at this point is if Google will go back to the red icon or adopt system theming, though we’re sincerely hoping it’s the former.
Talking of visual changes, Gmail recently introduced aredesigned app for Android tablets, focusing on better utilization of onscreen space. Among the primary changes was the relocation of the bottom bar to the left-hand side of the screen, along with the hamburger menu and the compose button.
