Google launches lightweight ‘Gmail Go’ app for Android, here’s how it works

Google has introduced Gmail Go, a lighter version of Gmail, to its Go line of apps. Gmail Go is targeted at users with low-end smartphones and/or regions with low connectivity or expensive data packs.

The ‘size-zero’ app, latest in the line of Google’s lean and mean Go apps, is almost identical to its original app and provides all the standard features such as supporting multiple accounts, push notifications, supports attachments, etc. The app also categorises promotional and social emails separately like Gmail does along with prioritising mails from family and friends.

In addition to all these, users can also avail the 15GB free storage from Google along with the ability to read and respond to messages both online and offline.

However, Gmail Go users won't be able to enjoy certain dispensable features such as automatic loading of images in order to cut down on data usage and ROM. Users can however chose to load these manually. Reports also suggest the app will also automatically block spam mails with the help of Google’s in-built algorithms.

Gmail Go is available to download from Google Play Store. However, the caveat here is you need to either be running Android Go on your Android phone or you require a device running Android 8.1 Oreo. On top of that, the app can be downloaded only in a limited set of countries for the time being.

The app is listed at 9.5 MB and will take up about 24.8 MB of your ROM as against the heavier app Gmail which is listed at roughly 20 MB and takes up about 48 MB post installation.

Google’s Go edition of apps include Files Go, YouTube Go, Chrome Go and Maps Go. They are custom-made to run on phones with low-end processors having RAM size of less than 1 GB and consume less data.