Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- An Android Authority teardown of the Gmail app has uncovered more visual changes.
- These changes include a redesigned search bar, no more Reply All button, and more tweaks.
- These tweaks are in line with Google’s Material 3 Expressive visual style, which will come to Android 16 later this year.
Google is working hard to bring its Material 3 Expressive visual style to both Android 16 and its own apps. Gmail has already received some Expressive tweaks that are rolling out now, but we’ve just uncovered even more visual changes.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
We cracked open the latest version of Gmail for Android (version 2025.06.22.776133050.Release) and enabled more Expressive visual changes. You can view the current and new visual designs in the screenshots below.
Starting with the first two screenshots, the new design moves the account and hamburger icons outside the search bar, while moving the Gemini icon inside it. The search bar also gains a white color. Another notable change is that we’ve now got dividing lines between emails. This is all in line with Expressive tweaks made to other Google apps. Moving on to the third and fourth screenshots, we can see that the Reply all button has been dropped. The Reply and Forward buttons also get a new design and are now just above the tabs. The reply icon below the subject line has also been removed. We also noticed that email content now has its own box.
These aren’t the only changes we’ve spotted in the Gmail app, as the tweaks also extend to the Chat tab in Gmail. Check out the new design below.
What’s particularly notable are the dividing lines between each field (e.g., Direct messages, Sections), in line with Material 3 Expressive. We can also see a new “+” floating action button in lieu of the previous design, which had a message bubble. The in-chat tabs, namely “chat” and “shared,” have also disappeared from the top of the page. Much like the main Gmail tab, the hamburger and account icons have been moved out of the search bar here as well.
In any event, it’s clear that work on Material 3 Expressive changes is proceeding rapidly ahead of Google’s release later this year. So we hope to see plenty of Google apps with these visual tweaks by the time the redesign hits Android 16.
