Google plans to introduce in Gmail over the next few days a message translation facility that will enable users to get mail in other languages automatically translated into their own language.
The company is also retiring some eight other Gmail features it was working on at its labs.
The Internet company first introduced the message translation feature as a Gmail Labs project in 2009, and users could enable the feature from the labs tab under settings.
The feedback was favorable, including from Google Apps for Business users who found the feature was useful for working with teams across the world, according to the company. “Some people just wanted to easily read newsletters from abroad,” wrote Jeff Chin, product manager for Google Translate in a blog post on Tuesday.
“Since message translation was one of the most popular labs, we decided it was time to graduate from Gmail Labs and move into the real world,” he added.
Users can choose to have messages in a language automatically translated in their language by selecting “Always Translate”, or they can click for translation using a translate message option. They can also turn off translation for a language.
Google also said it was moving its Title Tweaks and Smart Mute features from the lab to general use, but will be retiring from the labs what it describes as some less popular features such as the game Old Snakey, Inbox Preview, and custom date formats.
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John’s e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com