Gmail To Phase Out Legacy HTML View Next Year

Gmail To Phase Out Legacy HTML View Next Year

Gmail is seeing a decade-old, legacy feature getting phased out next year. The basic HTML mode, which is an alternative way of viewing mails on low-end devices or slow internet connections, has stayed as part of the modern Gmail interface in the initial loading screen for many years.

“You can display Gmail on your browser in Basic HTML view until January 2024. After this date, Gmail automatically changes to Standard view,” Google said in a support page. It’s worth nothing that virtually any system should be able to run Gmail in standard view by default, provided that browser supports it. (You’ll like need to go many years back – such as Windows XP era systems – to hit such technical limitations.)

Google hasn’t said if there will be a replacement feature to deal with slow connections, as the basic HTML mode is a way to view mails on a whim without any additional creature comforts – such as search filters, keyboard shortcuts, spellcheckers and more – impacting the performance or load times. If users wants to access these features, the company simply advises them to “switch to Standard view in a browser that works with Gmail.”

“The Gmail Basic HTML views are previous versions of Gmail that were replaced by their modern successors 10+ years ago and do not include full Gmail feature functionality,” a Google spokeperson told The Register. No specific reason was specified for the discontinuation, however one can safely assume security is likely one of the factors driving this change.

Pokdepinion: This may spell problem for enterprise environments which is rather notorious for sticking to extremely old systems. Hopefully the impact is minor after the change.