As I posted here, I’m experimenting with using Gmail in Safari or Chrome so I can separate professional from personal emails.
One of the problems I’m running into is that the text size of a message in Gmail is often uncomfortably small for reading on my 14" MBP or 13” iPad. I searched for extensions and found this one, which seems to do exactly what I want. Please take a second to watch the very short video. I want to increase the text size, NOT the entire browser window or its elements.
However, I am very cautious about extensions, which is one reason I typically only use the Safari browser. When I started to install it, I got this popup:
The reading of my browsing history is what concerns me. I only visit boring sites, but nevertheless… I should also note that I have the history feature (don’t recall the exact name) turned off on all of my Google accounts, if that makes any difference.
Would you consider this extension problematic or okay?
Before installing any extensions (which I mostly avoid), I would use built-in features. On Safari on iPad, press on the little icon to the right of the URL, and pick a font size. My hunch Chrome has a way to set the view fonts (or zoom setting), but I don’t have it to try.
Thanks for the kind reply. Unfortunately, when accessing Gmail via the web on the Mac or iPad, selecting that option increases the size of the total page, not just the text in the message. I appreciate the suggestion, though.
For this type of style manipulation one needs to inject CSS properties into the page, targeting the specific page element (the message reader).
Safari does not natively allow for this as far as I know, but you can install something like UserScripts or Tampermonkey extension for Safari. Which means installing another extension, but the Safari ones come from the AppStore and they are open source so you have an extra trust layer.
With these types of extensions you get access to a lot of CSS and JS hacks that are active only in the webs you choose (in your case, gmail.com) that could achieve this.
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, messing with CSS is way above my tech knowledge. I have zero experience with any scripting, CSS, and the like. I would think that both Apple and Google could “easily” created a slide bar to adjust and save the size of font in a web window.
In the screenshot you can see that the body of the message is HUGE now, while the rest of the interface is keeping its size. The text field of the message composition element is also too small, but a similar change would do the trick.
Satisfaction guarantee: I’m not sure if some other elements of the Gmail interface would be affected and also appear zoomed. If this doesn’t work, just uninstall the extension from Safari and Gmail will be as it ever was.
As a user with not a great eyesight, I would also love to have more control to the point that sometimes I use the Accessibility trick to quickly zoom the view with the mouse wheel.
for Gmail in the Safari browser? How am I missing that? I’m no developer, but I do know how to use Safari, at least I thought I did! I’m referring to increase “just” the size of the font in a received message. I don’t want any other elements to increase in size.
I just made a minor change to the name of my email and split it that way for the best
system response. Two similar names in one handler, easily identified.
I’m referring to increase “just” the size of the font in a received message. I don’t want any other elements to increase in size.
