For those of us who really dominate the email game, a new Gmail update has promised a reward in the form of an all-new congratulatory "inbox zero" icon.

The refreshed Gmail graphic, spotted by Android Police, replaces the previous image, which, under the congratulatory message "You've finished! Nothing in Primary", showed an abstract cartoon of a smiling woman, lying on her front without a care in the (working) world, reading a book in the countryside under a happy sun, suggesting an air of calm and peace for those lucky enough to clear their inboxes.

Clearly, this is not a Covid-friendly view of the new hybrid working world for Google, which has now refreshed the image with something a bit less outside-y.

As seen above, shown in dark mode on a mobile device, our carefree pal has been replaced with a selection of empty colorful boxes (inboxes?) stacked on each other, topped by a flag not unlike a castle banner (much like that seen at the end of every Super Mario Bros level).

The congratulatory message still remains, but it's a much colder, more sterile feeling to achieving the goal of clearing all your work tasks for the day.

Gmail inbox zero

Inbox zero may just be a pipe dream for many of us, especially with a work account, but Google clearly sees it as something worth celebrating.

Recent research carried out by TechRadar Pro and OnePulse found that over three-quarters of email users (75.6%) have between one and 10,000 emails in their inbox, followed by 16.75% with between 10,001 and 100,000, with just 7.59% having over 100,001 or more. Over half of users (50.2%) either said they don't know or don't care how full their inbox is. The rest have up to 5GB filled (32.8%) or over 5GB (17%).

Gmail was found to be the most popular email platform around, a conclusion backed up by recent figures from Google itself, which claimed in January 2022 that Gmail for Android has now surpassed 10 billion installs on the Google Play Store.

Via Android Police