Ever enjoyed being on a vacation only for it to be ruined by work emails and messages? A new feature on Gmail and Hangouts can prevent that from happening.
Work Emails
Receiving work emails is particularly irksome when on a vacation. On the flip side, there are also many who send important emails to a coworker only to receive a notification afterward that he or she was actually not available to begin with. Either way, the situation is annoying for the recipient and counterproductive for the sender.
Now, Google is rolling out a new feature on G Suite that will benefit both the present and absent worker.
G Suite Gmail And Hangouts
G Suite users will soon be notified when they are trying to email someone who is evidently on leave. When they do, a small, yellow banner will hover above the send button, informing the sender that the recipient is away and when they will return. Similarly, the same message will pop up in Hangouts if someone tries to message a person who is out on leave.
The feature works if the user marks him/herself as out of office on the calendar, much like the feature introduced last year wherein all meeting requests will be declined if they’re happening on the dates when the user is marked to be away.
So far, the feature will only be available for Gmail and Hangouts on G Suite.
User Privacy
For those worried about having people know about their vacation plans, there is actually nothing to be worried about. According to Google, only those that have granted access to your calendar will be notified, which means that they already have the information and are only being given a heads-up.
What’s more, even if the feature is turned on by default, anyone who does not want the feature can easily disable it by going to "Access Permissions” and turning off “Show calendar info in other Google apps.”
The feature has been rolling out gradually since Aug. 29, but a full rollout is scheduled on Sept. 16.
