I’m still mad about Google killing off Inbox, the greatest email client in history. I will never let anyone forget that. That note aside, part of the promise after Inbox was shelved to try and keep people like me happy, was that Google would try and bring over its best features by integrating them into Gmail. That hasn’t really happened, but one of the best Inbox features might finally be on the way.
Through an APK teardown of the latest Gmail update (v2020.02.02.294309273) by Android Police, they found strings inside that mention a new Travel “label,” which Google will apparently use in place of the word “bundle.” This new Travel label sounds almost exactly like what we got in Inbox.
To catch you up, Inbox used to smartly recognize all emails related to upcoming travel plans and sort those into individual trips. It looked like this. Instead of trying to manually maintain your upcoming trip, Google would automatically add related items (like hotel, airline, and restaurant reservations) into a trip bundle. You could then access it all before and during your vacations or work trips by tapping on the trip. It was awesome.
If this update is a sign of things to come for Gmail, we should soon see a “Travel”within the Gmail sidebar that introduces a similar concept. It’s about time too, since Google killed off their Trips app last year and has yet to replace it.
Additionally, there are signs that point to their being similar “labels” for purchases, so stay tuned for more.
Thanks, Google, but you still have a lot of work to do to make Gmail into Inbox, which should be done.