Google Inbox finally lets you attach files from Drive
Thankfully, it's also way easier to put emails straight in the trash.
It's been almost two years since Google launched Inbox, its vision for a smarter way to keep your email under control. The company has added plenty of features since launch, but there are still a few things left that you can only do in traditional Gmail. Today, Google's cutting down that list a bit by adding the ability to directly attach any files stored in your Google Drive to new emails in Inbox. It's been years since that feature was added to Gmail, and it's pretty handy if you're deep in Google's ecosystem, so we're glad to finally see it show up in Inbox.
Inbox has always tried to collect the different pieces of your digital life that come in through email (things like shipping notifications, calendar updates, reminders and so forth), and today Google's also adding a few new integrations. Now, notifications from Trello and GitHub that come into your Inbox will automatically show you a summary of their contents by default, so you can see exactly what changes have been made without even opening the email. It's displayed in the same style as newsletters from places like Medium, which also are displayed with a preview of their contents.
The last bit of info Inbox can now pull are the various Google alerts you may have set up. Those emails you get with your updates can be displayed in that newsletter style that is spreading quickly throughout Inbox. You'll see a preview of the contents from your inbox, and if you tap the email it'll start with an auto-generated summary of the items inside. You can tap or click on those specific items to get the full story, or just scroll down to read the full email.
There's one more small update rolling out today that should be a blessing for long-time Inbox users: It's now way easier to put emails directly into the trash instead of the archive. If you hover over a message in your inbox on the web, a trash can icon is prominently displayed next to the "done" and "snooze" options. Previously you had to select a message first to get the trash icon to appear. It's a little change, but if you'd rather send more messages to the trash than into your archive, it's very nice to see. All of these updates should roll out today for Inbox users on the web, and they should be present in the Android and iOS apps as well.
