Wednesday, November 19, 2008 4:17 PM/EST

Google Rolling Out Gmail Themes

Update: The Google Gmail team is at it again, but this time fun is trumping hardcore functionality.

Basking in the warm reception of its new Gmail voice and video chat utility, Google has added more than 30 themes you can choose from to make your in-box look colorful, cool or just better tuned to your personality.

The move recalls Google's April introduction of iGoogle artist themes, launched with flair by Google search guru Marissa Mayer in Manhattan in summer 2008. These digitally rendered masterpieces proved popular because users could leverage the palettes from real artists to liven their iGoogle pages.

To customize your in-box, go to a new "Themes" tab under Gmail settings. ~~Unfortunately, I don't see it yet but I've pinged Google's Gmail team to get whitelisted~~. As of 6 p.m. EST, I've been whitelisted. It's pretty cool and I'm currently using the Graffiti feature until I get tired of my tabs being shrouded in darkness.

If you don't see it yet, don't fret. Gmail engineer Annie Chen said Google will be rolling out the Themes feature to all users over the next few days.

Here's a group shot of 18 of the themes (very colorful) and Chen writes:

There's a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There's even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers -- it's not exactly practical, but it's great for testing out your geek cred.

So, it looks to me like Gmail is getting prettier as well as more useful. How about you? Do you see the Gmail themes feature? What do you think?

Comments (8)

Brian :

awesome work google. lets see if http://www.picmember.com can get themes too. Then my picinbox and my mail inbox would be fabulous!

Posted by Brian | November 19, 2008 4:51 PM

Marian :

yes I did get the new "Themes" in my Gmail account I don't think that they released it yet any for Google Apps accounts; I'm not sure why there is "Your location is set ." option there but anyhow it's nice that we can now change the look of Gmail !!!

Posted by Marian | November 20, 2008 8:56 AM

Wren :

I think it's great. I love how they correlate some of the themes to the weather outside! (That's why they ask for location - try the tree theme) You score again, Google!

Posted by Wren | November 20, 2008 2:34 PM

Hannah Lee :

Well, I succumbed to the banner ad telling me to have a look at the inbox themes. I chose one: DESKTOP. Now I hate it. I hated it 4 seconds after I chose it, and I want the old standard one back. Problem is, I can't find a way to change it back to the way it was.

I want the old look back! Help!

Posted by Hannah Lee | November 20, 2008 6:25 PM

Al :

Hannah - it's easy, just go to settings (upper right), then Themes - then select the Default, or Classic.

Posted by Al | November 20, 2008 8:07 PM

Ron Buelow :

I love it.

Posted by Ron Buelow | November 22, 2008 10:56 AM

Dave :

I really like the new themes but one problem, I have two gmail accounts, in order to stayed logged in to both I use Firefox for one and IE for the other ... I have the themes tab in firefox but not IE ... any ideas? I did log into my second one with Firefox, had the tab and selected the theme but when i login via IE, the theme is gone and once again no theme tab.

Posted by Dave | November 23, 2008 9:46 PM

skip :

Great addition but as with some of the folks above would love to see themes migrate to my account that runs thru my ISP. When I spoke with one of their tech reps, he had not heard of themes nor knew if the other Google add ons would trickle down to them.

Posted by skip | December 11, 2008 1:05 PM

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