Personalize Your Gmail Interface With Gmelius

If you spend a lot of time in Gmail, composing and replying to emails, you’ve probably started wishing that there were certain things you could change in order to improve your Gmail experience. Maybe you miss the old compose window, or maybe you wish that you didn’t have to look at all those ads, or perhaps you’d like the option of tweaking the interface here and there to suit your needs and tastes. Well, you can stop wishing, because Gmelius is here.

Gmelius is a browser extension that aims to provide a cleaner and smarter Gmail experience. It lets you customize the Gmail interface, showing only the elements you need and hiding the rest. Whether you want to reduce clutter or just want to freshen Gmail up, Gmelius is the extension for you.

Recommended Reading: Get More Control & Functionality On Gmail With MxHero Toolbox

Getting Started With Gmelius

Gmelius is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. All three versions of the extension should work identically; we’ll be taking a look at the Google Chrome version in this post. Note that you can also download the extension from the official website, which should detect the browser you’re using and offer the correct version for download.

Either way, once you’ve installed Gmelius, you should instantly be taken to its configuration screen. No extra logins or anything of the sort to worry about.

Gmelius Features

As you can see from the configuration screen, Gmelius has a lot of features, grouped into separate categories, that will help you get your Gmail interface just right. We don’t have the space to discuss every single feature in depth, so here’s a quick run-through of the more notable features.

All of the options in the Regain some space in Gmail category have to do with removing certain elements of the Gmail interface, freeing up screen real estate for the important things, namely the emails themselves. Amongst the interface elements you can disable include Ads, the People Widget, the footer, all the chat-related elements and the scrollbar.

There are also options that can tweak how the Gmail Header works. You can enable things such as an additional button to hide and show the Gmail header bar, the ability to automatically scroll to the top of your inbox by clicking the topmost light grey bar, as well as hide Google+ Activity.

The Gmail inbox category houses all the features that change the inbox itself. You can enable a subtle row highlight when you mouse over emails, homogenize all incoming emails, add text to and colorize navigation icons as well as restore the old Gmail compose window. Do bear in mind that the old compose window is still in beta, so you may encounter some small bugs here and there.

Finally, Gmelius also has the ability to add attachment icons to your inbox. By default, the Gmail inbox only shows that there’s an attachment with that small paperclip icon, without showing what sort of attachment it is. Enabling this feature changes this paperclip icon to an icon that matches the type of file that’s attached to the email. More than 40 filetypes are currently supported.

Premium Features

Gmelius also includes a few premium features. These features are free to use while the extension is in beta, but expect to have to pay for them once the extension leaves beta.

There are currently two options in the Make Gmail Smarter category. Firstly, you can enable the ability to search Gmail directly from the omnibox or address bar, which is a very handy feature that most will probably find useful. There’s also a feature that that automatically simplifies email addresses, replacing "[at]" and "[dot]" with the more readable "@" and ".", that’s enabled by default.

There’s also a Print cleaner emails option. This option removes the Gmail logo and modifies Gmail’s printing stylesheet to make your printed emails look more professional. The modified stylesheet also lets you include more text in a single page, quite handy for those really long emails. This feature is also enabled by default.

Conclusion

As you can see, Gmelius is a great solution for anyone who’s not entirely thrilled with the Gmail interface and wants to change things up a bit. Between hiding unused interface elements to tweaking the colors and behavior of the Gmail inbox, Gmelius has probably got you covered. Gmelius is currently free, with no charge for the Premium features yet, but you can donate to the developer if you like the extension.

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How to set up and personalize the HTC One M8 for the first time

So you’ve finally got your hands on the new HTC One M8 and are turning it on for the first time. This mean seem like a cake walk to the experienced Androiders out there, but for those who are getting a smartphone for the first time, the entire setup process is often quite new and even overwhelming. Here is how to set up your phone as well as personalize it to make it your own.

 © AndroidPIT

When first turning on your phone, you’ll first of all choose the language and then set up your WiFi connection, if you have one. After this is done, you will be prompted to sign in to your existing Google Account or create a new one. If you’ve chosen the latter, there’s the option of creating a G+ account. You are then prompted to backup and restore your data that was collected under the Google Account on your other phone. This includes apps, app settings, system settings and Wi-Fi passwords. Google Wallet can be set up at this point in time or anytime later on if you plan on buying any apps, movies, music or books from the Google Play Store.

The first steps of setting up the phone are like any other Android phone. After the first 5 steps, the HTC steps come into play. © AndroidPIT

That basically sums up what all Android users will see when setting up pretty much any Android device, since devices on this operating system are closely linked to Google, Google accounts and Google services. The following screen brings you to the HTC Advantage page where it informs you of the 50 GB Google Drive storage space and Advanced Content Backup & Restore features you can take advantage of. To use this, you need to sign in with Google which then sets you up an HTC account.

You get 50GB of Google Drive storage when getting your new M8. © AndroidPIT

Instead of setting up your email, apps, ringtones, wallpaper etc on your phone, you are able to do this on your computer, which might be a good idea if this is your first smartphone. For this you simply type in the URL they provide on the phone and enter the code on the computer when asked for it. Then there are various easy steps to follow in setting up feeds for BlinkFeed, applications, sounds, bookmarks and wallpapers.

Setting up your HTC One can be done on the phone itself or on your computer. © AndroidPIT

Next, back on the phone, HTC has made it really easy to transfer the contents of your previous phone (HTC, other Android phones, iPhones and other platforms are supported) to your new M8 via Bluetooth or to restore data from HTC Backup. The next step has you choose which accounts you would like to sync on your device and whether you would like to have auto sync, meaning that apps can download even when your phone is on standby.

Transfering data from your old phone is done in a pinch, regardless if it is an Android, iPhone or other non-HTC phone. © AndroidPIT

Thankfully, HTC has packed its phone full of tips & tricks, help and tutorials on each function. There is an app called HTC Guide that provides Troubleshooting for problems, checks on your phone’s performance, provides you with helpful tips as well as checks to see if a software update is ready for you. This app also has an option to contact HTC directly. In fact, HTC has really proven to be customer focused in the recent past and the way it goes about getting users better familiar with the M8 really solidifies this impression.

HTC is one of the best client-oriented manufactuers that really helps keep its clients informed with the HTC Guide app. Some other of the HTC built-in apps are Kid Mode, HTC Backup, HTC Apps to name a few.© AndroidPIT

After having set up your phone and restored your data from your other phone, your Gmail account, and your HTC Backup account, you are ready to personalize your HTC One M8 if you didn’t do this on the web page as mentioned before.

Head to the settings of your phone, which you can attain by going into the App drawer located on the Launch bar located at the bottom of the page. There you will find the settings. Another way to get to it is by sliding your finger down from the top of the page to access the quick notifications, and select Settings on the top right corner.

Besides choosing the home and lock screen wallpapers, you can choose the M8 theme. © AndroidPIT

Here, scroll down until you see Personalize. Tap on it and select a home screen wallpaper from the stock HTC selection, your own gallery, computer or other apps. The same goes for the lock screen wallpaper. Further down you will see the Theme option. Choosing one of these will slightly change the overall color scheme of the user interface. You can mainly see these changes on BlinkFeed and in the settings.

From here, the customization of your HTC One has no end: you can rearrange, add and get rid of the home screen pages and add widgets, by pinching on the home screen. You can also change the apps on the launch bar or add them to your home screen by long pressing on the app you want in the App drawer (the 6 squares icon in the Launch bar) and dragging them to their new spot.

An integral part of the HTC One M8 home screen is BlinkFeed, that, you guessed it, you can customize as well. By swiping from the left side of the screen to get the Navigation bar and tapping on the menu button next to the search bar, you can include content from services and apps, add and remove content, highlight topics, select the default ‘’read later’’ services (HTC Reading List or other apps like Pocket) and save for offline news reading.

BlinkFeed is constantly on your home screen and can be customized to show content from apps, services, newspapers, magazines etc. / @ AndroidPIT

Though the software features and functions on the HTC One M8 go much further than what is stated in this article, another useful feature I will mention is the Quick Settings, where you can turn functions on or off with one tap. And yes, you can customize this too: tap on the edit icon (pencil on a piece of paper) on the top right corner. In the Edit Quick Settings screen, tap and hold on the three vertical lines next to each function to rearrange features or add and remove them from the hidden list (you can have a total of 12).

The Quick Settings are a very useful tool, that can be found on most Android devices. © AndroidPIT

Before you start using your HTC One, you should also get acquainted with the new motion and touch gestures that have been implemented on the new flagship device. I could definitely go on all day about the first steps on setting up your device, though that would constitute writing a book, which is why we’ll redirect you to the HTC One M8 Touch gestures page. Also, don't forget to set up a lockscreen unlocking method to protect your own privacy and security.

To check out the gestures that you can use on your M8, head to Settings, then scroll down the Motions.© AndroidPIT

Enjoy your new M8 and let us know what you think.

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