Posted by John Rae-Grant, Product Manager

Have you ever wondered why Gmail asks you before showing images in emails? We did this to protect you from unknown senders who might try to use images to compromise the security of your computer or mobile device.

But thanks to new improvements in how Gmail handles images, you’ll soon see all images displayed in your messages automatically across desktop, iOS and Android. Instead of serving images directly from their original external host servers, Gmail will now serve all images through Google’s own secure proxy servers.

So what does this mean for you? Simple: your messages are more safe and secure, your images are checked for known viruses or malware, and you’ll never have to press that pesky “display images below” link again. With this new change, your email will now be safer, faster and more beautiful than ever.
Of course, those who prefer to authorize image display on a per message basis can choose the option “Ask before displaying external images” under the General tab in Settings. That option will also be the default for users who previously selected “Ask before displaying external content”.

Similar to existing features like default https access, suspicious activity detection, and free two-step verification, image proxying is another way your email is protected. This new improvement will be rolling out on desktop starting today and to your Gmail mobile apps in early 2014.

Posted by Nick Piepmeier, Software Engineer

Having access to your data and being able to take it with you is important, especially if that data contains precious memories like old love letters, your first job offer, or that 100-message thread discussing the merits of various cat videos. Starting today we're rolling out the ability to export a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data, making it easy to back up your data or move to another service.

You can download all of your mail and calendars or choose a subset of labels and calendars. You can also download a single archive file for multiple products with a copy of your Gmail, Calendar, Google+, YouTube, Drive, and other Google data.
The ability to download your Gmail messages will be rolled out over the next month while Calendar data is available to download for everyone today.

Posted by Boris Khvostichenko, Product Manager

When life gets busy, you rely on your calendar to keep track of what you need to do and where you need to be. And to help you stay on top of things, Google Calendar is getting a bunch of improvements, just in time for the extra busy holiday season!

Know where to go with Google Maps autocomplete

Creating events in Google Calendar is now faster with autocomplete predictions from Google Maps. Calendar will autocomplete addresses as you type so you can quickly and accurately add locations to your events.
Your friends can then simply click on the “map” link to make sure you all end up at the right place.
Instantly see relevant events as you search

Don’t know which day you’re meeting a friend for lunch? You can now instantly see relevant events and contacts as you search in Calendar so you can save time and quickly find the information you’re looking for.
Stay up-to-date with events that update as Google Groups change

You can invite a lot of people to a Calendar event by sending an invitation to a single Google Group. To help your calendar stay up-to-date with group changes, event guest lists will now automatically update as people join or leave a group. This way you don’t have to worry about missing any events organized by a new group you joined or having your calendar filled with events that no longer matter.