Google revamped the Gmail app with the Material You design makeover last year. Now the app is getting another refresh in terms of design. As noted by 9To5Google, the latest Gmail update removes the icon labels from the bottom bar on Android. Apparently, the bottom bar shrunk with last year's update as well, and now with the new update, the bottom bar has shrunk even further.
Prior to the latest update, the Gmail app had Mail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet labels underneath their icons on the bottom bar. A few users reportedly received the no-icon label version a few days ago, but now it is rolling out widely for everyone with Gmail app version 2022.08.07.x. Interestingly, this is already the case on the Gmail app for iPad.
Since the icons are well-known to everyone, Google might have thought that there was no point in having them. However, there isn't any immediate meaningful benefit from this, it just gives you a tiny bit of screen real estate. This might be a start of a new change that Google might adopt for its other apps.
The update is rolling out gradually, and it may take some time to knock on the doors of your Galaxy smartphone and tablet since there could be a server-side component involved.
