Gmail may now ask users for verification while adding new forwarding address

SAN FRANCISCO: Google has announced that Gmail may now ask users for verification when they add a new forwarding address, create a new filter or edit an existing filter.

Last year, the tech giant had introduced stronger safeguards around sensitive actions taken in the Google Workspace accounts.

"We’re extending these protections to sensitive actions taken in Gmail," the company said in a Workspace Updates blogpost on Wednesday.

The sensitive actions include creating a new filter, editing an existing filter, importing filters, adding a new forwarding address from the

Forwarding and POP/IMAP settings, and enabling the IMAP access status from the settings.

When these actions are taken, the tech giant will evaluate the session attempting the action, and if it’s deemed risky, it will be challenged with

a “Verify it’s you” prompt.

With a second and trusted factor, such as a 2-step verification code, users will be able to confirm the validity of the action.

Also, if a verification challenge fails or is not completed, users will receive a “Critical security alert” notification on trusted devices.

"Note that this feature only supports users that use Google as their identity provider and actions taken within Google products. SAML users are

not supported at this time," the tech giant explained.

Earlier this month, the company had introduced a native translation integration within the Gmail mobile app that enables users to seamlessly

communicate in a wide range of languages.

To translate messages on mobile, users have to select “Translate” on the dismissible banner and choose their preferred language.

The dismissible banner appears when the content language of a message is different from the “Google.com Mail display language” in users' account settings.

Also, users can choose to have Gmail always translate or never translate

specific languages.