Posted by Victor-bogdan Anchidin, Software Engineer

UPDATE April 1 2pm: We heard feedback that some of you were negatively impacted by this feature, so we quickly turned it off late last night. In addition, we are working to bring back Mic-Dropped messages that had subsequent replies to your inbox, so you can read those.

We realize many of you use Gmail for very important messages, and we are sorry if Mic Drop was in any way harmful to you. Note that if you’re a Google Apps business, education or government user this feature was never turned on.

At Google we have a culture of sharing what we learned when things go wrong, and we want to share these learnings with you:

1. We should have asked you before turning on the feature, and it should have included a confirmation before sending.
2. We didn't anticipate accidental clicks: "Send + Mic Drop" was too close to other send buttons ("Send" as well as "Send & Archive"), which caused confusion. 
3. And yes there was a bug. It was rare, but possible to press the regular "Send" button and still Mic Drop if you did the following: 

• Opened a new compose window
• Pressed the “Send & Mic Drop” button with no recipients and saw error message
• Edited the message by adding message recipient(s)
• Pressed the regular send button.

Again, sorry. We love April Fools jokes at Google, and we regret that this joke missed the mark and disappointed you. 

UPDATE April 1 1am: Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. 😟 Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.

Email's great, but sometimes you just wanna hit the eject button. Like those heated threads at work, when everyone's wrong except you (obviously). Or those times when someone's seeking group approval, but your opinion is the only one that matters (amirite?). Or maybe you just nailed it, and there's nothing more to say (bam).

Today, Gmail is making it easier to have the last word on any email with Mic Drop. Simply reply to any email using the new 'Send + Mic Drop' button. Everyone will get your message, but that's the last you'll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won't see it.

When you drop the mic, your email will also include an explanatory image--just to help set expectations.

Friends and family have been testing Gmail Mic Drop for months, and the response so far has been awesome:

• "Sending email is so much easier when you don't have to worry about people responding!"
• "Mic Drop is a huge improvement over Mute! I can finally let everyone know I'm just not interested."
• "My team solves problems so much faster with Mic Drop. In fact, we stopped talking to each other entirely!"

Gmail Mic Drop is launching first on the web, but mobile updates are on the way. So stay tuned, and stay saucy.

Posted by Balint Miklos, Software Engineer

When someone emails you asking to schedule a meeting, there's a good chance you're thinking, "Aw 💩 ." Or, when you get that 17th update on that topic you stopped caring about 10 emails ago, you just wanna say 💤 . Or maybe your friend just emailed you photos from Vegas, and you get inspired to stand up and 👏 . Whatever you want to say, emoji can say it better (obvs). So we figured we'd take the deep neural network behind Smart Reply, and make it more sassy.

The result is emoji suggestions in addition to (or instead of) really boring text replies. In our testing, we've also found that emoji do a better job of plumbing the emotional depths of one's soul, so we're optimistic that today's update will encourage more open and honest email conversations.

Looking ahead, Smart Reply will actually get better the more you use it, so you'll be able to strike just the right balance between written responses, and 😍 😱 🛀 🎉.

PS: Smart Reply is only suggesting emoji. We are investigating. Pardon our dust.

PPS: We are happy to report that our deep neural network had quickly learned that when given a choice, you, our users, always pick emoji. Smart Reply adapted so quickly that we thought it was a bug. Thankfully, Smart Reply will continue to show the three most perfect replies, which happen to always be emoji.

PPPS: 🚀🐍🎉🐱🍕💯

Posted by Taylor Kourim, Software Engineer

Today, we're bringing Smart Reply to Inbox on the web.

Just like in the Inbox mobile app, Smart Reply saves you precious time by suggesting up to three responses based on the emails you get. Selecting an option starts a reply, ready for you to either edit or send:

10% of all your replies on mobile already use Smart Reply, so we’re excited to bring this same convenience to the web. It's particularly helpful when you're jamming through lots of emails on your laptop.

Keep the feedback coming using the "Help & Feedback" link in the app.