Google Gives Gmail A Productivity Boost With Third-Party Add-Ons

Here is some good news for Gmail users—living up to its promise earlier this year, Google today expanded the potential capabilities of Gmail by launching native support for third-party add-ons. Now users can tap into services such as Asana, Dialpad, Hire, Intuit QuickBooks Invoicing, and others right from within their inbox, negating the need to toggle between the inbox and other apps.

"With Gmail Add-ons, your inbox can contextually surface your go-to app based on messages you receive to help you get things done faster. And because add-ons work the same across web and Android, you only need to install them once to access them on all of your devices," Google stated in a blog post.


Google previously made Gmail Add-Ons available in developer preview as it worked to iron out the kinks. Since then, Google's partners have jumped on board with various add-ons to help businesses connect with customers, track projects, facilitate invoicing, and more. There is also a DocuSign add-on that is coming soon, that will allow Gmail users to sign and execute contracts, agreements, and other documents directly in Gmail.


The first wave of add-ons include all the of the ones already mentioned, plus ProsperWorks, RingCentral, Smartsheet, Streak, Trello, and Wrike. Going forward, Google's pitch to developers is that add-ons are easy to create, in part because they only have to write code once for an add-on to work on both web and mobile. Developers also have access to a rich palette of widgets to craft a custom UI.

To use add-ons in Gmail, click on the settings wheel on the top right of your inbox and select Get add-ons. They are available for both enterprise and individual users.