About Simplify Gmail
Simplify Gmail changes how Gmail looks and behaves rather than adding a service on top of it. It is made by Michael Leggett, who describes himself in the store listing as a co-founder and design lead of Google Inbox. The idea is that Gmail's interface is cluttered and can be trimmed.
The features are practical. Hide parts of Gmail you never use, set list width and fonts, group mail with the same label into one row as bundles, and add saved searches to the sidebar. There is a pause-inbox mode for focus, auto-switching dark mode, arrow-key navigation and extra shortcuts. It also blocks more than 250 known email trackers, a count that comes from the developer.
On trust, it is one of the lighter-touch options. It asks for access to mail.google.com and Google's image host, not the Gmail API, and its listing says no data is collected, sent or stored and that there is no analytics or advertising. Those are the developer's claims and the code is not public. The cost is a paid plan once the free trial ends, and some reviewers dislike that. If you use Gmail on a desktop all day, this is the one we would try first.
Pros and cons
- Blocks email trackers and has no access to the Gmail API
- Hundreds of design tweaks, bundles, saved searches and shortcuts
- Says it collects no data and has no analytics or ads
- Actively updated, with Firefox and Safari versions too
- Paid plan required after the free trial
- Closed source, so privacy claims rest on the developer
- Desktop Gmail only
Permissions
It runs on mail.google.com and Google's image host so it can restyle the page and block tracker images, plus storage for settings. It does not request Gmail API access, and downloads is an optional permission.
