Starting in February 2024, anyone looking to send more than 5,000 messages to Gmail addresses in one day will be required to do a few extra things. The sender will need to authenticate the email — which Google says will close loopholes typically exploited by attackers looking to threaten email users. Authentication will include following Google’s recommended best practices, like using DKIM or SPF authentication for your email domain. Bulk senders will also be required to set up a one-click unsubscribe option for recipients. Additionally, Google will begin enforcing a “clear spam threshold” to prevent Gmail recipients from being bombarded with unwanted messages. The company said its spam threshold is an “industry first” and will result in Gmail users receiving less inbox spam.

Yahoo users will also benefit from the new spam prevention measures. Google says it has enlisted Yahoo (Engadget’s parent company) to implement the same changes early next year. Over the years, Google and other tech companies have been battling spammers who send emails to scam unsuspecting users. The spammers are constantly leveling up, which means Google has to keep coming up with new ways to protect its users.

“These changes are like a tune-up for the email world, and by fixing a few things under the hood, we can keep email running smoothly,” Google product manager Neil Kumaran explained. “But just like a tune-up, this is not a one-time exercise. Keeping email more secure, user friendly and spam-free requires constant collaboration and vigilance from the entire email community.”

While these changes should have probably been implemented years ago, it’s good to see big tech companies still being proactive about the safety of users. There’s no denying that spam emails have gotten out of control. We’ve seen far too many reports of people, especially the elderly, being scammed out of thousands of dollars after responding to an email from a prince or clicking a link from a refund scammer. As to whether Google’s new measures will improve the current situation, we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s likely we’ll have to deal with spam for as long as email exists but at least these measures may keep it from hitting our main inbox.

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Google has started rolling out the feature to Android devices, and you'd know that you already have access to it if you see a smiley face icon at the bottom of an email when you open it on the app. You can tap on the icon to bring up a menu where you can find the emoji options to choose from. Everyone's reactions will show up right next to the icon, and some of them will come with their own short animations. If you choose the party popper, for example, prepare for digital confetti on your screen upon sending one or upon opening a message with party popper reactions. It'll be a lot less fun for people on the email chain not using Gmail, though, because they'll receive each reaction as a separate email.

While you can only access emoji reactions on Android at the moment, the feature will make its way to iOS devices and the web over the next few months.

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If you’ve used Proton Mail before (or any recent / modern mail client), the app won’t be a surprise —it’s the standard three-pane view, with different folders on the left, a list of message in the middle and a preview of the message contents on the right. Like in Gmail, there’s a right-hand rail that has icons for your contacts and calendar that’ll expand to show the selected item if you click them. But for more calendar details, there’s a button to switch the whole window view from mail to calendar and back. Proton Drive and Proton Pass already have a desktop app, but for now Proton is keeping it separate from mail and calendar, which makes sense. Those two tools go hand-in-hand, but storage is kind of its own thing.

While the new mail app doesn’t improve on or change the design of Proton’s web tools in any major way, I can say that the beta app felt quite responsive in a little testing I did. And while I wouldn’t mind more than a slightly tweaked web wrapper (being able to draft an email in its own window would be nice), I do prefer keeping my email out of my browser window. I’m sure there are other Proton users who feel the same way and will find this app pretty handy for that.

If you’re not currently paying for Proton Mail, you can give the new app a try for two weeks, but after that you’ll need to upgrade your account to keep using it. The Mail Plus plan costs $4/month if you sign up for a year, or you can get Proton Unlimited for $10 per month with a year plan that includes 500GB of storage (instead of 15GB for Mail Plus) and Proton Drive, Pass and VPN.

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