Gmail Confidential Mode

In rolling out major updates to Gmail, Google announced Wednesday (April 25, 2018) that the popular email service will soon feature a new "confidential mode" that promises to give users more control over who sees the emails they send, and for how long.

When you write an email using confidential mode, you can select for how long the recipient will be able to read the email. Recipients will not be able to forward, copy and paste, download or print the content. You can't stop anybody from taking a picture of the screen of course, but what's maybe more important here is that if anybody ever hacked the recipient's account, that email with your confidential information will be long gone. For added security, you can also add a second-factor authentication here, where the recipient will have to receive an SMS message with a Google-generated passcode to read the email.

Some online privacy experts, such as Sydney Li, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue that calling the new feature "confidential mode" is misleading. For one, Gmail's servers will still contain a copy of the email, Li said. -- While I understand EFF's point here, I think that confidential mode will be a good tool for those of you who use Gmail as your primary personal e-mail account. (Although moving your e-mail to a service like Protonmail would provide more confidentiality and security for your personal communications.)

Confidential mode isn't quite here yet, but should begin to roll out in the coming weeks. If you use Gmail keep an eye out for this new feature in new Gmail. In your Gmail account, click the gear icon in the top right corner, you will see an option to "Try the new Gmail" up top. Once you are using new Gmail, watch for confidential mode icon to be added to your new message options, during the coming weeks.