GMAIL IS GETTING A LONG-OVERDUE UPGRADE

Google is adding features to Gmail, including Snooze buttons and a sidebar with a new task-management system.

The company is rolling out new features like Snooze buttons and a sidebar with a new task-management system. Google promises other new features, including new security options, in coming weeks.

The Snooze feature will help you declutter your inbox by hiding messages for a set amount of time. For example, if you’re reading your mail on your phone at home and notice messages requiring the sort of lengthy response that benefits from a full keyboard, you can snooze the messages until morning. That keeps them out of sight, so you can relax knowing that they’ll show up again at the right time.

Google is also bringing its automatically generated Smart Replies from the mobile version of Gmail to the full web version. If you want the new features, you’ll need to turn them on in your settings.

Some of the more significant changes are yet to come.

One of the biggest is called confidential mode, which gives you the option of sending an email that requires the recipient to enter a code sent via text message before opening an email. You’ll also be able to set messages to self-destruct after a certain period of time and to prevent users from having the option to forward, download, print, or copy a message.

Google also plans to use artificial intelligence to identify the most urgent incoming emails and allow you to limit mobile notifications to these. It will also try to identify mailing lists you can unsubscribe from by keeping tabs on how often you actually read messages from lists and how long it takes you to open those messages.

Another new feature, Nudges will remind you about emails that you haven’t responded to.