The holiday shopping season is coming and Google is working to prepare for the onslaught of online orders that will be placed left and right. The company today announced a very useful feature for Gmail, namely package tracking.
This is not the “parcel tracking” of the variety that provides you with a link and then redirects you to the website of the company delivering the goods. No, this is direct tracking straight to your inbox.
The feature will be rolled out “in the next few weeks”, through “most of the major US shipping carriers”. Once you reach your device, you’ll see a dialog box at the top of your inbox asking you to allow tracking to work – since Google needs to check for updates on your behalf, it requires your explicit consent to do so.
Once accepted, you will see the expected arrival date for the packages right under the title of the message in your inbox and when you send an email the tracking information will be featured at the top. You will receive updates such as “label created”, “arriving tomorrow” or “delivered today” – that sort of thing. Just the essentials, not an in-depth list of every single place your package has been on its way to you.
Plus, “in the next few months,” Gmail will proactively display a delay label for overdue packets and will also bring the corresponding email to the top of your inbox, so you don’t miss a thing.
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