C’est magnifique! Gmail now translates e-mails, other Labs products say au revoir

Google has graduated its message translation feature from Gmail Labs to all inboxes, as well as cutting some cool, helpful Labs features like Old Snakey and Mail Goggles, the company announced today.

During the past year, Google has been refining what it offers and getting rid of many of its side projects and products that never went anywhere. For example, last November it said good riddance to Wave, Knol, Search Timeline, and Google Gears. This appears to stem from CEO Larry Page trying to push the company to generate better revenue, which the company is doing well.

Google today is masking that it is killing lots of cool products in Gmail Labs by graduating its message translation to Gmail. When you get a message in another language, you’ll know be able to click on “Translate message” button.

“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,” Google wrote on its blog. “Over the next few days, everyone who uses Gmail will be getting the convenience of translation added to their email. The next time you receive a message in a language other than your own, just click on Translate message in the header at the top of the message.”

While this is helpful addition, take a look at this list of fun and helpful features being expelled from Gmail Labs: “Old Snakey, Mail Goggles, Mouse Gestures, Hide Unread Counts, Move Icon Column, Inbox Preview, Custom Date Formats, and SMS in Chat gadget.”

Google says these weren’t popular enough to stay, but frankly some of them were good. Mail Googles was a humorous way to stop you from “drunk e-mailing.” Inbox Preview let you see your inbox before it finished loading, which was great for slower connections. I’m sure there are others people will be missing too.

Translation picture: Helder Almeida/Shutterstock