Gmail is one of the most popular free email applications due to the integrated services offered by Google. As per Wikipedia, it has 1.4 billion users as of April 2018. It is an essential part of most of the people’s daily life to send receive personal and official communication. Slow loading Gmail can be a frustrating experience which can occur due to many reasons. For example, installing many add-ons or keeping the storage full on your account can easily make Gmail slow. In this article, let us explore various options to fix slow Gmail and speedup your work.
Related: How to fix slow page loading in Google Chrome browser?
How to Fix Slow Gmail and Speedup Your Work?
- Check Gmail is up
- Load basic HTML view
- Disable Hangouts chat
- Load less messages
- Disable conversation view
- Remove filters
- Use default Gmail theme
- Disable Gmail add-ons
- Disable experimental access
- Check browser extension
- Clear browser cache history
- Blocked or slow connection
- Remove third-party app authorization
1. Check Gmail Service Up or Down
If Gmail is not loading at all then the first thing you should check is the service is up or down. Sometimes, Google services can also be down causing Gmail to load slowly. You can login to your Google account and visit the G Suite Status Dashboard.
Here you can view the status of all the Google apps like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, etc. Ensure that Gmail status is showing in green under “Current status” column.
2. Load Basic HTML View
Though Google offers high-speed connection for your Gmail, the loading speed also depends on your own internet connection. Gmail has a standard and a basic HTML view. The standard view contains all options you normally view, and the HTML view contains minimal options to speed up your work. When you have slow connection, Gmail will show an option to use “Load Basic HTML” at the lower right corner like below.
Click on the “Load Basic HTML” link to load Gmail faster and focus on email communication. Whenever required, you can change back to standard view.
3. Disable Google Hangouts Chat
By default, Gmail will show the chat message box from Hangouts. This can not only kill your speed but also distract when you need to focus on emails. Fortunately, you can turn the sidebar chat off temporarily or permanently.
- To access the chat settings, click on the “Gear” icon and select “Settings” option.
- Go to “Chat” section on the top menu.
- Select “Chat off” and click “Save Changes” button.
The page will reload, and the sidebar chat will be removed. You can definitely feel the page is loading faster than before without the chat box.
4. Display Less Messages on Load
By default, Gmail loads 50 messages till the page end which could also make it slow when loading. In most cases, you may not need to load lots of messages on the first page. The best option is to reduce the number to 10 or 20 depending you’re your email receiving frequency.
- Click on the “Gear” icon and select “Settings” option.
- Under “General” tab, look for the option “Maximum page size”.
- Click on the dropdown that shows “Show xx conversation per page”. You can select 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 and 100.
- Choose one of the options like 10, 15 or 20.
- Scroll down and save your changes.
5. Disable Conversation View
Well, the conversation view is very helpful to view the entire thread of communication. However, on slow connections it will struck without loading properly and affect viewing the latest message. If you don’t like to see the messages in conversation view, look out for the “Conversation View” option under “General” section of the settings page. Select “Conversation view off” to disable the conversation view. This will help to view individual messages which can help the interface to load faster.
Related: How to fix slow loading YouTube videos?
6. Remove Filters
You can use filters in Gmail for sorting and segregating your incoming emails. However, using many filters or having many unused filters can slow down the loading speed. In this case, you can go to “Settings” and navigate to “Filters and Blocked Addresses” tab. Here, you can view all the applied filters on your account. Check and delete the not used and unnecessary filters.
7. Use Default Theme
If you are bored with the default theme, you can go to “Gear Icon > Themes” and pick a custom theme. This will change the entire Gmail interface to have new a new look. However, it may kill the speed especially on slow connections. In such case, we recommend you go back to the default theme. You can simply, click on “Gear Icon > Themes” and choose the “Default” option.
8. Disable Gmail Add-ons
There are many third-party developers offer add-on for Gmail G Suite Marketplace. If you are not sure, go to “Gear Icon > Settings > Add-ons” section. Check and disable any unnecessary add-ons on your account.
In addition, ensure to disable the option “Enable developer add-ons for my account”. Google also will show warning when enabling this option as third-party developer add-ons may affect your account.
9. Disable Experiments
Google allows you to use the experimental features on your Gmail account. Ensure to disable option from the “General” section of “Settings” page. Though you can get the features in advance to test, these features will affect the stability of your account. Therefore, we recommend you disable this option to improve the stability.
10. Check your Browser Extensions
Your browser extensions can also affect the loading of Gmail messages. Check all installed extensions on your browser and deactivate them all specifically Adblocker extensions. On Google Chrome, you can go to “chrome://extensions” page and turn off all extensions. Check Gmail is loading fast without extensions, if yes then enable the extensions one by one to find the culprit.
11. Clear Browser Caching Data
The corrupted browser caching can slow down the Gmail without any problem with your Google account. Almost all the browsers support deleting browser history and caching by pressing “Control + Shift + Delete” in Windows and “Command + Shift + Delete” in Mac. Otherwise, you can check the option in menu or settings and delete the cached data.
12. Blocked Services or Slow Connection
Countries like China completely blocks all Google services like Gmail and YouTube. If you are living or visiting those countries, you can use reliable VPN services like ExpressVPN or VyprVPN to access Gmail. However, you may see error messages like “Oops… the system encountered a problem (#001) – Retrying in 1s…” frequently. This indicates that the services are blocked, or your VPN is terminated. Ensure to disconnect and connect your VPN with other reliable servers to have stable connection.
You will also see the same error message when the connection very slow and you are trying to do resource intensive actions like changing the theme or installing add-ons.
13. Disable Authorized Apps
Other big problem with Gmail is that many third-party apps and websites allow you to login to their app or site using Gmail. You need to confirm the authorization when allowing apps to access your personal data from Gmail. Though this is convenient, using too many connected services may affect the loading time of your Gmail account. We recommend you check the apps you have provided access and disable unused and unnecessary apps.
Conclusion
We hope the above solutions helped you to fix slow Gmail and speedup your work.
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.