Science

Why Is My Gmail Logo Blue? Google Testing Bizarre New Experiment

Everyone take a deep breath, you can change it back.

Flickr / FixtheFocus

If your office uses Gmail, you might have noticed something this Tuesday that made you raise your eyebrow. The Gmail icon is blue!

For now, the change only appears to affect accounts that use G Suite, which are corporate emails or accounts with custom domain names — so business addresses that don’t end in gmail.com, basically. This seems to be a change Google is testing to allow users to see how many unread messages are in their inbox at a glance of the icon, even when the tab isn’t on the inbox. It’s unclear if changing the logo’s color was intentional.

See also: “I Used Gmail’s ‘Smart Reply’ in Every Email for a Week

While only G Suite accounts are turning blue, enabling this feature on your personal Gmail account will keep the logo red but give it a sleeker look with the number of messages in the inbox overlaid on top of it.

Both of the Gmail logos with "Unread message icon" enabled.

Gmail

Google power user Zev Zoldan took to Twitter to calm users’ nerves and explain how to revert the envelope back to its former look.

All you have to do is click on the gear at the top right corner of your inbox, which will open a dropdown menu. Go into “Settings,” and then navigate to “Labs.” From here scroll down until you see a box that says “Unread message icon,” this is what caused the change of color.

Gmail

Simply disable this feature and hit “Save Changes” at the top left of the “Labs” menu. Then refresh your inbox and the Gmail icon should be back to its former crimson glory.

Google has not released a statement regarding this optional logo change.

Most people across Twitter were a mixture of confused and upset. But some users actually liked the changes, as it let them quickly distinguish between their personal and corporate email.

For now we’ll have to wait and see why exactly Google was feeling the blues.

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