Google drops ‘If This Then That’ support for Gmail

IFTTT, or If This Then That, is a useful tool that allows various apps, devices and internet services to work together using “applets” or recipes to help them connect. For example, there is an applet that links Twitter and read later app Pocket so that each time you favourite a tweet it gets saved to your Pocket reading list.

A favourite of Gmail users, IFTTT has countless triggers and actions ranging from automated email blasts to let friends know you’re running late to converting email reminders into a to-do list on Wunderlist or similar. It also allows users to create their own custom applets.

Unfortunately, a major update to Gmail’s API will see all Gmail triggers removed from IFTTT by March 31st. The only actions that will continue to work are “send an email” and “send yourself an email”.

In a statement, IFTTT said it would have been almost impossible to retain this functionality: “The changes being made to Gmail would have required massive refactoring in how we integrated Gmail with the IFTTT platform. It would have created a lot more overhead than we had before, and the experience for users would have been degraded as a result.”