Google continues to pump shopping features into many of its platforms this holiday season; this time, gmail You get a new package tracker.
This year’s Black Friday falls on November 25 We expect retailers to offer big discounts or get early sales as a way to attract customers. This means that a lot of packages are in the mail and your email account is full with shipping confirmations. With shipping tracking (Opens in a new tab)Gmail will display a simple indicator of providing important delivery information directly in your inbox.
As Google explains, orders with a tracking number will show green text in the inbox list view to let you know when the package has arrived. Opening this email will display a summary card at the top that tells you if the package label has been created, if it’s in transit, and if it’s been delivered. You do not need to copy and paste the tracking information to another website to show basic order information.
If you want more information, the summary card comes with two hyperlinks that you can click on. One will take you to the order details page and the other to a timeline showing where your package is located.
Availability
Google states that the Gmail package tracker will be launched in the coming weeks for mobile platforms first before moving to desktop a few months from now. The feature will track incoming packages via the US Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx, according to a company representative. You can opt out of tracking updates by going to your Gmail settings and disabling them there. There are plans to expand the feature by adding a delay label to let you know if a package will be delayed. Similar to the desktop tracker, the delay label will be released within the coming months.
However, there may be some problems with packages from Amazon. A Google representative told The Verge (Opens in a new tab) Amazon’s unique Email Format will not allow Gmail to display tracking information from those requests. They add that the feature will not work “if the tracking number is not included in the merchant order email”. We’re told that Google is looking to expand to other carriers in the future which could mean support for Amazon, but nothing is firm for now.
little worry
The package tracker seems to be a really useful tool, but we have some concerns about privacy protection. According to Google, the tracker works by having Gmail scan tracking numbers in your inbox in order to display the status of the package. The same actor revealed that the tracker doesn’t include any new protections Regardless of what Gmail already has (Opens in a new tab). If this concerns you, we recommend Upgrade your device’s security with a security suite.
Make sure to check out A report earlier this week about Google updating its search engine To include new Special Offer tags on product thumbnails and new price statistics.