Android 6 - native Gmail app not bolding new/unread emails

[Sphex 2 Point 0]

Newbie to smartphones, using a Moto G Play wth Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. The native Gmail app has suddenly stopped bolding new/unread emails. Instead the arrow left of the subject is colored yellow, where it's not colored (white) for read mail. This is just too hard to see and doesn't match the SOP of all other mail app(lications) I know of, including Gmail for my Windows 7 pc.

Web search reveals other people having this problem but no easy solution and I prefer to stick with Gmail rather than installing a third-party app.

Any ideas or solutions appreciated, thanks!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! The arrow actually denotes if the email is considered "Important" by Gmail. If it's yellow, it's considered Important. If you go to your Gmail website on your computer browser, you'll see that the arrows correspond to what you see in your Gmail app, and if you hover over that arrow, Gmail will give you a brief explanation why it's considered Important.

I'm not sure why your new emails aren't being bolded, though. Are you using a custom font whose bold might not look different enough from the standard? Have you tried going to Settings>Apps, selecting Gmail, and clearing cache/data, then opening it again?

 

[Sphex 2 Point 0]

I have cleared the cache several times, no change. I have set all mail apps to manual sync only (I don't use the phone often at all, and less for email) and thinking that might have something to do with it tried re-enabling background sync. If you selected "didn't help" here you win.

Not using a custom font (not even sure how one would do that) -- but I have learned that not only is it the same -- no bolding for new msgs -- on other Android apps (eg, Blue Mail) but it's now happening thru the Gmail website itself under Windows. So it seems a Gmail change or glitch. I've seen references to this from as early as 2008 but no direct solutions that apply, esp since it's a new phenom to me; the only solution at all is from somebody on a Mac who found two disabled fonts and re-enabled them. This is extremely unlikely to apply to me, esp across both platforms.

The only thing I can consider with my limited Android knowledge, if it's technically legit, is to try installing Gmail from the Play Store over the preinstalled version, and then, you know, prayer. But it's a seriously annoying issue, and all my Hotmail and Yahoo Mail messages, on the web and on Android apps, are working correctly. Any other ideas welcomed with open Android arms.

 

[B. Diddy]

Do you forward your Gmail to any other email account or client? If so, the process of forwarding or retrieving the Gmail emails might be marking them as read already, even before you've seen them in the Gmail app. For example, did you set up your Windows Mail app on your desktop to show your Gmail?

 

[Sphex 2 Point 0]

No, at least not that I'm aware. To test things I composed an email sent to each of the three accounts included on the phone (1 Gmail, 1 Hotmail, 1 Yahoo) from a fourth unrelated account. Then I opened Gmail on the phone and manually synced; the test message in the Hotmail and Yahoo boxes was bolded correctly, the one in the Gmail inbox was not. Repeated this using Blue Mail on the phone with identical result. Repeated again to check the unread message through the Gmail website, same result: Gmail is no longer bolding new/unread mail. To the best of my knowledge these tests confirm that nothing else is accessing the mail before I do so manually.

Oh well... such is the wonder of it all.

 

[B. Diddy]

Do you happen to have any of the Gmail Labs features turned on? They're accessed in the desktop Gmail's Settings.

 

[Sphex 2 Point 0]

You know what? Maybe. But nothing that I've changed in months or longer. The only New Thing is using the phone app for mail. If that alone is the cause of the change I'm just gonna learn to live with it, because it's on Gmail's end, since none of the other services have been affected in any way. I very much appreciate your time and assistance, but how much deeper I'm willing to dig into this is starting the descent to "game over." I'll just switch any important mail over to one of the other accounts because done. O