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User style: Gmail Tabs by cloudHQ

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CloudHQ is the champion of Gmail add-ons. In the past years they created a bunch of smart little browser extensions in rapid succession. Have you always wanted to be able to rename an email subject? Scribble down a note on an e-mail (short of printing it and writing your note on paper)? Forward multiple emails in one go, instead of forwarding them one by one? Well, CloudHQ has got you covered. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. They have loads of browser extensions that turn Gmail into your daily email power house.

Gmail Tabs is another one of CloudHQ's little diamonds that is brilliant and elegant in its simplicity. Suppose you have a list of projects you are working on. You want to have each of those projects' emails just a click away. Still, you like your screen estate to be uncluttered by Gmail's label list. That's were Gmail Tabs comes in:

Screenshot: Gmail Tabs by CloudHQ.Screenshot: Gmail Tabs with its default look

Gmail Tabs before Stylus

Remember Quick Links?

If you've been using Gmail as long as I have, you will certainly remember a feature called Quick Links. With Quick Links you could capture one single search command under a link. Clicking the link would perform the search. I used to have dozens of those, so you can imagine my dismay when Google decided to pull the plug on Quick Links.

You can imagine my dismay when Google decided to pull the plug on Quick Links. With Gmail Tabs they're back!

With Gmail Tabs they're back!

So, you can quickly add your existing labels to a tab and you can also add your own searches to a tab. Here's an example of a search that I've always found useful:

label:inbox is:unread -in:chats -category:social -category:promotions -older_than:7d

This search finds all unread emails in my inbox that are not older than seven days and that are not part of a chat or one of the categories Social and Promotions. It keeps me on top of my new mails without any distractions. It's sheer impossible to miss out on an important new mail anymore.

Add, Edit and Delete tabs

This post is not meant to be a manual for Gmail Tabs. However, it is good to mention that you can add a currently active search or label to tabs, you can change the search or name of tabs and you can delete tabs. You will find a small edit icon on the right-hand side just above the Gmail settings icon. It will present you with a simple but sufficient interface to edit the tabs bar to your liking. You can also move tabs around by grabbing one with your mouse and moving it to a different position.

Design

You've guessed it: there's just one thing I am a little less enthusiastic about and that is Gmail Tabs' design. I'm probably being a little nitpicky about this, as I am known to be at times, but still. Although I'm not a designer by any means, I am perky enough to think I can do better. There, I've said it!

Although I'm not a designer by any means, I am perky enough to think I can do better.

What I do know about design is that less is more. In software design, a rule of thumb is that it's about the product, not about the design. Therefore, I tried to create a style that made Gmail Tabs just a little more pleasant to use.

Screenshot: Gmail Tabs after the user style was applied.

Gmail Tabs after Stylus

So, this is what was changed:

  • the inbox tab is there by default. It's blue underlined, which was changed to red,
  • the default Gmail inbox icon was added to the inbox tab,
  • to get some visual feedback on what you are clicking on, the background of the tabs now changes into light grey on mouse hover,
  • also, you can click anywhere on a tab to activate it, but the cursor didn't change to indicate that; now it does,
  • all tabs now have a darker grey bottom border,
  • there's an annoying line under the edit icon, which is now removed,
  • when hovering the edit icon, the background hover is a grey rectangular; this was changed to the Gmail default grey circle,
  • in edit mode, the colour of the delete icon was changed to red.

The screenshot shows a different font as well (Roboto Condensed), which is not part of the downloadable style for Gmail Tabs. Please let me know if you think I should add it or not.

So there you have it: a simple user style for Gmail Tabs. Since I am so enamoured with CloudHQ's extensions, you can be sure that more CloudHQ-related user styles will follow!

Make sure you check out CloudHQ's great collection of very useful Gmail add-ons and have fun with Gmail Tabs and its user style.

I hope you will check out this style. It can be downloaded by clicking on the image link below. Have fun using Gmail Tabs and Stylus!

And please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

User style for Gmail Tabs:

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