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kyrra | 3 months ago

This. You can disable all smart features (which includes things like mail categories, AI auto-complete, and most things that look at your emails).

Gear -> All Settings -> General tab (default) -> Smart features: Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet

Linked help page: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322

discuss

mrweasel|3 months ago

How many would turn them on if they defaulted to "Off"? Probably not enough to justify the development cost.

kvirani|3 months ago

True but that is a function of ignorance too. There are plenty of good features in Gmail that are off by default, like undo / delayed send and keyboard shortcuts.

pera|3 months ago

I really wished they would also let you disable those very annoying modal popups announcing yet-another-chatbot-integration twice a week: My company is already paying for your product, just let me do my work ffs...

echelon|3 months ago

> You can disable all smart features

For how long?

You don't own the platform. Google PMs may decide to roll it out to everyone at some point to hit numbers.

ctoth|3 months ago

And this is generically true and always has been about every aspect of GMail?

What would you suggest people do. Self-host?

I'm just trying to understand why you posted this. It's generically true. Any company can change anything at any point. May as well just pack it up boys.

OJFord|3 months ago

Well, they're off by default in the countries mentioned in the top-level comment because they're legally required to be opt-in there (the implementation rather than the feature of course, but it couldn't really be otherwise).

I suppose, to your point, Google doesn't have to make it optional in other countries... But that discrepancy would seem to have a lot of downside (maintenance, optics, docs) for little upside (...force adoption against the will of users who would go out of their way to opt out of they could?).