If you use Gmail, it just got a lot easier to track your shipments. Today, the company announced that it’s rolling out a new package tracking feature to your inbox.
The way it works is simple. When you receive an email with a shipment tracking number, Gmail automatically displays a delivery status label in the message’s header. Statuses include “Label created,” “Arriving tomorrow,” and “Delivered today.” The preview images on Google’s blog post announcing the new feature also show labels reading “Arriving Wed, Dec 21,” indicating the exact date a product will arrive.
However, the new feature won’t be automatic. You need to opt into the service in your Gmail settings. And you can shut it off at any time. According to the blog post, the service will work with “most major U.S. shipping carriers.”
Package tracking comes just in time for the holiday season when many people have more packages arriving than usual for events like Christmas and Hanukkah. And it will save a lot of time people spend searching their email for a tracking number, copying it to their clipboard, then going to the delivery service’s website and pasting it into the tracking system.
The company gave no firm dates about when the new feature will become available, merely stating that it will arrive “in the coming weeks.”
Sources: Google Blog via Mac Rumors
