Manage Subscriptions is all about making unsubscribing easier and cleaner for users.

Rather than having to jump through hoops to unsubscribe, users have greater control over their inboxes and can easily reduce the amount of spammy or excessive marketing tactics they’re seeing on a regular basis.

This feature is rolling out slowly, and only some users currently have access, with bugs and fixes ongoing. It’s still better to be proactive and prepared than reactive and not ready!

Users will have crystal clear transparency on what they’re subscribed to and have the ability to easily, swiftly clean their inboxes of brands they don’t want to hear from - it’s a pretty big win for the average Gmail user in an age of clickbait, excessive emails from many brands.

• It could mean bulk clear-outs from time to time or more frequently
• It could also mean users may get into the habit of unsubscribing rather than excessively deleting with this easy-to-use feature

We’re not about to fearmonger (it’s not our style!), but it makes sense to anticipate an increase in unsubscribes that could be quite steep. 

Keep in mind that the commonplace excuse of users ‘forgetting to unsubscribe’ won’t apply anymore - if you want to keep landing in inboxes and being welcomed with open arms, you need to up your value game or risk being thrown into the unsubscribe abyss.

The way you track unsubscribes may (probably) need to change & measuring your Gmail users in alignment with their unsubscribe behaviour could provide insight.

Now more than ever, your segmentation and preference centres are crucial in understanding what your subscribers want and when. 

Google is leaning into the fact that inboxes have become e-commerce dashboards.

The majority of people now receive their order confirmations, shipping updates, and delivery alerts by email, but those messages are scattered across Promotions, Updates, or Primary.

By creating a single “Purchases” view, Gmail makes it easier for users to manage online shopping in one place. It also reinforces Gmail’s role as the central tool for daily life management,  not just communication.

For Gmail users and consumers, this means clarity and hopefully a lot more convenience.

Instead of scrolling back through dozens of messages, they can see their entire shopping activity at a glance.

It reduces friction and makes tracking deliveries more reliable. For people who shop a lot online, this could become the go-to way they check order status, instead of opening individual emails.

This shift is significant.

Transactional emails (like order confirmations and delivery updates) will get more visibility;  they’re no longer lost among newsletters and promo campaigns.

That’s really good news, because it strengthens trust and helps businesses reassure customers at the moments that matter most.

But there’s a flipside as always). 

With Gmail clustering all purchase-related emails together, your marketing content that piggybacks on transactional emails (which is partly illegal by the way, transactional emails should NEVER sell), might get treated differently by users. If customers only glance at the “Purchases” view for logistics, your carefully crafted cross-sell message could be ignored.

It also raises the bar for clarity.

If your transactional emails look too much like promotions, you risk confusing users, or worse, losing trust.

Marketers will need to keep transactional content laser-focused on service value, while handling promos through separate, well-timed campaigns. 

I would highly encourage you to use your ecommerce platform's email shipping alerts for this rather than building your own in your ESP (e.g. use Shop, Shopify etc). 

The Promotions tab has always been a bit of a graveyard where messages pile up, but most users rarely scroll far back or hunt through older campaigns - they do, but it's the minority (when you're trying to find something). 

Google’s update reflects how people actually interact with marketing emails: they engage with some brands more than others and ignore others entirely.

By surfacing the most relevant, timely offers, Gmail is trying to make the Promotions tab feel more useful and less like clutter.

For users, this is all about control and convenience.

Instead of sifting through dozens of “latest offers,” they’ll see the brands and deals that genuinely matter to them, right at the top.

The nudges also reduce the chance of missing limited-time discounts. Importantly, people still have the option to stick with chronological order, so it doesn’t feel forced.

This change makes engagement king (or queen in my books).

The more a user clicks, opens, replies, or interacts with your brand’s emails, the more likely Gmail is to feature your campaigns in the “most relevant” view.

On the flip side, if your emails are ignored, they’ll sink further down and not come up high in that view. 

That means relevance, timing, and quality of content are now even more critical.

Batch-and-blast campaigns risk invisibility.

Brands that consistently send useful, targeted, valuable content are the ones that will win the top spots.

Marketers should also be prepared for increased pressure to measure engagement beyond opens, since Gmail is using behavioural signals to decide what’s “relevant.”

If your list is bloated with unengaged users, your visibility in Promotions could drop dramatically.

Google is streamlining and modernising Postmaster Tools. The old dashboards were dated, and many of the metrics (like domain reputation scores) were being misunderstood or misused. By moving to v2, Google is trying to focus marketers on the data that actually matters for inbox placement and give more accurate, actionable insights.

End users won’t notice anything here, their Gmail experience doesn’t change. But the health of the email they receive is indirectly influenced. With marketers relying on newer, more accurate signals, the hope is that users get less spammy or broken email.

For us, this is a big deal. If you’ve built reporting workflows or monitoring processes around the v1 dashboards, you’ve got until September 30, 2025 to move them across. After that date, you won’t be able to access v1 at all.

It also means you’ll need to rethink how you measure reputation. The “Domain reputation” chart that many teams fixated on is gone, so you can’t lean on it anymore. Instead, you’ll want to track metrics like spam complaint rates, authentication status, and delivery errors, all of which remain in v2.

And with the new API coming, there’s an opportunity to build more automated reporting into your deliverability workflow. But that means planning ahead, updating your processes, and being ready to switch before the deadline hits.

Google is pushing its AI-first strategy deeper into everyday tools. By embedding Gemini into Gmail, they’re making the inbox more than a mailbox, it’s becoming a productivity hub where writing, scheduling, and task management happen seamlessly. The aim is to reduce friction, save time, and make Gmail feel more intelligent and personalised.

This update subtly changes how people interact with marketing emails:

• Tone consistency matters. If replies are AI-generated, you may see more short, functional responses instead of detailed engagement.

• CTAs must be sharper. If you want someone to “book a call” or “save the date,” Gemini may auto-convert that into a calendar action. Your copy needs to be crystal clear so the AI interprets it correctly.

• Engagement may get shallower. Users could interact through quick AI-assisted clicks without ever absorbing your full message. That means clarity, brevity, and obvious next steps are more important than ever.

For us, this is a big deal. If you’ve built reporting workflows or monitoring processes around the v1 dashboards, you’ve got until September 30, 2025 to move them across. After that date, you won’t be able to access v1 at all.

It also means you’ll need to rethink how you measure reputation. The “Domain reputation” chart that many teams fixated on is gone, so you can’t lean on it anymore. Instead, you’ll want to track metrics like spam complaint rates, authentication status, and delivery errors, all of which remain in v2.

And with the new API coming, there’s an opportunity to build more automated reporting into your deliverability workflow. But that means planning ahead, updating your processes, and being ready to switch before the deadline hits.

Google’s strategy here is very, very clear: make Gmail and Workspace feel less like separate apps and more like one connected productivity environment.

By linking email with tasks, documents, and calendars, they’re aiming to reduce friction for everyday users. It also reinforces Google’s AI-first approach, embedding Gemini across touchpoints instead of siloing it as a standalone tool.

For users, this means the inbox becomes a hub where more actions can be completed without switching apps. You can confirm meetings, add events, or reply in context with minimal effort. On mobile, the updated interface also makes these features easier to access, especially for Android users. The trade-off is that Gmail becomes more complex behind the scenes, with AI shaping how people interact with their mail. Some users will love the efficiency; others may find the AI suggestions intrusive.

This matters more than it looks on the surface.

If Gmail is becoming an “action centre” instead of just a message list, the way people interact with your campaigns changes.

• Less time in the email itself – if a user can add your event straight to Calendar from the preview, they may never read the rest of your copy. That makes subject lines and first lines more important than ever.

• Minor UI tweaks can affect clicks – updates to Gmail’s mobile interface might subtly change where buttons and actions appear, which can shift click behaviour. If your campaigns rely on very specific formatting or layouts, you’ll want to test them after each rollout.

• Integration pressure – if your team builds tools that hook into Gmail (like link parsers, action buttons, or third-party integrations), they’ll need to be kept up to date with these incremental changes. What worked in March might behave differently after an April feature drop.

Google regularly runs these updates to stay ahead of spammers and low-quality senders who adapt to old detection patterns.

The August 2025 update is part of that ongoing cycle, tightening filters, closing loopholes, and making sure inboxes remain safe and useful. It’s less about a shiny new feature and more about Google’s continuous effort to protect users and keep spam volumes down.

For end users, the impact is largely invisible. They don’t get a pop-up saying “spam filters updated,” but they may notice fewer unwanted emails in their inbox—or, in some cases, legitimate messages getting filtered more aggressively. The update is designed to improve inbox quality overall, but users could see shifts in which senders land where.

This is where the ripples show up:

• Deliverability fluctuations: Even clean senders may notice changes in open rates, placement, or engagement as Gmail’s algorithms adjust.

• Borderline practices get punished: If your sending relies on purchased lists, weak authentication, or high-frequency blasts, this kind of update exposes and downgrades you fast.

• Reputation becomes even more critical: Consistent good practices (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, list hygiene, clear unsubscribes, low complaint rates) help you ride out updates smoothly.

• Continuous monitoring is non-negotiable: You can’t assume what worked last month will keep working. Deliverability needs to be tracked in real time so you can react quickly if performance drops.

• Privacy and control: As people interact with more services/apps, they often have to share their email. Shielded Email helps limit exposure of the primary address.

• Spam / alias abuse mitigation: If you give an alias to a site and it gets commandeered by spam or reused by that service, you can disable it without affecting your core inbox.

• Transparency / tracing leaks: Because each alias can be unique to a service, you might be able to detect which service leaked or shared your address (or which one’s sending spam).

• Competitive parity: Apple’s “Hide My Email” has been around for iCloud users; Google likely wants a similar feature so their users don’t feel left behind in privacy tools.

• Less risk exposing your real email: When signing up for unknown or untrusted apps, users won’t have to hand over their main address.

• Alias hygiene: Users may create many aliases and turn off forwarding when needed, giving them more control over what reaches their inbox.

• Simplified cleanup: Instead of unsubscribing or filtering unwanted senders, a user can cut off an alias entirely.

• Alias-based segmentation: When users sign up via an alias, you may not know their real address—or whether they’ll stick with it. That could complicate long-term remarketing.

• Bounce/authentication complexity: If alias forwarding is implemented poorly, it might create bounce paths or affect SPF / DKIM / deliverability if the alias scheme isn’t fully integrated and validated.

• Visibility & tracking shifts: Aliases might be used only once; marketers may lose visibility into lifetime engagement or cross-campaign attribution if users keep rotating aliases.

• Need for clarity & value up front: If users are using an alias just to test or shield their email, you’ll need to deliver value immediately to win their trust.

• Unsubscribe/opt-out expectations: If a user disables an alias instead of unsubscribing, that counts as their preference. Your systems should be able to respect alias shutdowns as equivalent to opt-outs.

Microsoft will now require:

• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication for anyone sending 5,000+ emails per day
• Real, functioning from & reply-to addresses
• Working unsubscribe links
• Proper bounce and complaint management

As with Gmail’s Manage Subscriptions, the name of the game is protecting users from spam and phishing and making it easier to have a cleaner, controlled inbox.

They also received additional email hygiene recommendations:

• Use valid, replyable “From” or “Reply-To” addresses that match your sending domain
• Include clear, easy-to-find unsubscribe links in marketing or bulk emails
• Regularly clean your email list to remove invalid addresses and reduce bounces
• Be transparent: use honest subject lines, accurate headers, and only email people who gave consent

Users will have cleaner inboxes with less spam and a greater ability to reply to or unsubscribe from real senders - greater inbox cleanliness and clarity!

They may potentially hear from fewer brands/senders, which could be a good thing = less crowded inboxes. 

Again, proactivity is the key, here.

If you haven’t already implemented full authentication, you’ll find your emails landing in spam or being blocked entirely.

Following best practices and maintaining tight list hygiene is an absolute must, and if you’re not too sure on how to keep your deliverability on point, check out our Simple Guide to Email Deliverability.

Ensure you’re not hiding your unsubscribe links - don’t be shy with them.

Let go of risky, old data - it’s not worth the end to all ‘just in case’.

Oh, and if you’re still using that no-reply@yourcompany.com email… it’s time to retire it. Forever.

• Some emails from trusted senders may occasionally land in Junk or get quarantined, depending on policy settings, content, or sender signal quality.

• Users in enterprise / business environments may see stricter filtering than consumer Outlook users.

• In environments with strict security policies, emails may be held or reviewed before delivery.

• Don’t assume one setup works for both consumer Outlook.com and Office 365 recipients—test separately.

• Use SNDS to monitor IP health, complaint rates, and filtering signals from Microsoft’s side.

• Pay attention to content and reputation—authentication is necessary, but not always sufficient.

• If you operate in B2B or enterprise space, monitoring Exchange / Office 365 quarantine logs is important.

• Configure and respect outbound spam / security settings in Microsoft 365 (for senders using Microsoft infrastructure) to ensure consistency.

Well, it doesn't really, as this is more B2B and managed by their organisation - it’s all happening behind the scenes.

They may see that they are not getting emails on time or at all from businesses and newsletters they’ve signed up for. 

[Sigh]. 

We’d love to write a blog without banging on about the devil that is click rates, but unfortunately, it has to be said.

Inflated opens & click rates are inevitable with security tools and filters, which can cause absolute chaos for everything from your A/B test results to positive engagement stats.

In short, diagnosing what is working well and what isn’t might become more tedious because you can’t rely solely on the data at face value.

You need to be:

• Monitoring suspicious click spikes
• Looking for all-link clicks and same-IP patterns
• Working with your ESP on filtering bots from reports

Users can now skip and skim through emails like Tinder because it’s easier. Add in the better organisation - even though it means more filtering - and it’s a pretty convenient feature for a lot of users.

It also means:

• Users can reply quickly & potentially learn quickly
• It makes it easier to sift out the emails they know they won’t engage with = higher deletion rates

Your preheader message might now be out of your control, which puts more emphasis on your subject lines as your primary way to catch attention.

Additionally, your tone, brand voice, and structure might be summarised or missed completely, alongside emails being miscategorised or buried completely.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though.

There are a few things you can do to combat this:

• Optimise your subject lines and top-line content (this is the area least impacted by these changes, so use this space wisely)
• Don’t rely on preview text alone
• Personalise to full impact, as users need far more incentive to click through 
• Build trust and recognition with senders’ names 

For users, it’s a huge quality-of-life upgrade. Emails are instantly sorted into Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions, with Apple’s AI giving a quick digest of what’s inside. That means less inbox overwhelm and more speed when checking mail. But there’s a trade-off: you might not see every single message anymore. A shipping update could get tucked into a bundle, or a marketing email might only show up as a short summary you skim past. The inbox is now designed for fast triage, not deep reading.

This is where things get tricky. First, your transactional emails , if they feel promotional, Apple could drop them into the Promotions tab where they’ll get far less attention. Second, you can’t rely on preheaders anymore because Apple is writing its own summaries. If the critical info isn’t in your subject line or first sentence, users may never see it. And with bundling, multiple sends from your brand could collapse into one slot—so that important update you queued might end up buried behind something less urgent. On the flip side, BIMI logos are now front and centre, so if you’ve invested in authentication and brand verification, you’ll stand out in a very crowded inbox.

Let’s be honest: giving away 1 terabyte of storage for free was always going to be unsustainable. This change is about cost, control, and cashflow. Hosting and backing up decades of emails for millions of people is expensive. By cutting limits, Yahoo reduces infrastructure strain, nudges more people toward paid plans, and cleans out inactive accounts that clog up their system. It also brings them more in line with competitors like Gmail, who only offer 15 GB shared across mail and drive.

For users, the impact is immediate and personal. If your mailbox is over 20 GB, you’ll stop being able to send or receive emails after August 27, 2025, until you make space or pay for an upgrade. Long-time Yahoo users who’ve been hoarding every message since 2002 are going to feel this the most. Suddenly, clearing out old attachments, emptying the trash, or archiving offline isn’t optional; it’s actually survival.

This change creates new deliverability challenges. Expect to see more “mailbox full” bounces when sending to Yahoo addresses, especially if your list contains older or less engaged users. Higher bounce rates don’t just waste sends, they can also hurt your sender reputation. It means marketers need to tighten list hygiene, revisit their suppression rules, and think carefully about whether continuing to mail inactive Yahoo accounts is worth the risk. Clean, engaged Yahoo addresses will still perform fine, but the margin for laziness in list management just shrank overnight.