“Previously, in order to view a video attachment in Gmail, you would have to download it to your computer and open it with a media player. Starting today, when opening an email with video attachments, you will see a thumbnail of the video and have the ability to stream it, right from inside Gmail,” G Suite team said in a blogpost.
Gmail’s new feature is powered by the same Google infrastructure that is used for YouTube, Google Drive, and other video streaming apps. This means the videos are streamed at optimal quality and availability.
While playing videos within Gmail, users can adjust its quality as well as sound. Gmail will allow users to stream videos to a Chromecast device as well. Remember Gmail only allows attachments up to 50MB, while its limited to 25MB while sending. This means users will not be able to send videos larger than 25MB.
Gmail is gradually rolling out the feature to everyone and users should be able to see the same in up to 15 days.
Gmail recently made changes to its policy on Javascript files in attachments, one that blocks messages containing .js attachments. Google said the company is blocking .js attachments due to security reasons. Gmail already restricts several other file attachments such as .exe, .msc, and .bat