Use GMail? Go Minimal With Helvetical.

Posted: September 23rd, 2009 | 10 Comments »

My entire online life is with Google right now, and as much as I love GMail, I am not a fan of the way it looks on the screen. It’s very “blah” and kind of cluttered as an email program, but in doing a little bit of looking online, I have found a way to make it much more simple and nice-looking. Of course, you have to be using Firefox as your browser to implement this tweak, but trust me – it’s worth it. It makes Gmail (along with GCal and GReader) look absolutely fantastic. Take a look (click on each to see a full size picture):

helvetical1 Use GMail? Go Minimal With Helvetical.

helvetical2 Use GMail? Go Minimal With Helvetical.

helvetical3 Use GMail? Go Minimal With Helvetical.

Looks nice, right? As much as I enjoy a minimal lifestyle, I truly enjoy good design – and that’s exactly what this add-on to Firefox is. If you are interested in getting this look for yourself, there are a few things you need to do

1. Be using the Firefox browser
2. Install Greasemonkey
3. Install the Helvetical user scripts

I just love the way that Helvetical has simplified all my Google applications down to the bare minimum and made them look so much better. Are you using something like this to simplify your digital life? Let me know so I can check out what you are using as well!

Related posts:

  1. How To Read And Send All Your Emails From Inside Your Gmail Account.
  2. How I Use Google To Organize My Entire Online Digital Life.
  3. Free ‘Get Organized’ Forms Available For Use In Google Docs.


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10 Comments on “Use GMail? Go Minimal With Helvetical.”

  1. 1 Kal said at 1:19 pm on September 23rd, 2009:

    I’m frustrated. I was excited about your suggestion. Downloaded Firefox to my Imac, installed greasemonkey and have tried and tried to do the helvetica script but it’s not “taking” (Can you tell I’m totally NOT a computer person?!*) Any suggestions? PLEASE….

  2. 2 David said at 1:37 pm on September 23rd, 2009:

    What do you mean by “not taking”? If you clicked on the “install this script” on the helvetical page I linked to, it should be installed fine. Is greasemonkey activated? Other than those things, try closing the browser and re-opening/logging into gmail and see if that works.

  3. 3 Kal said at 2:34 pm on September 23rd, 2009:

    I first downloaded firefox.
    Then greasemonkey
    Then tried to run the script and nothing happens. I shut down and restart hoping it will look like the picture but it just looks like the same old google calendar.

  4. 4 David said at 3:04 pm on September 23rd, 2009:

    The script on that page is only for Gcal, so check to make sure if that already changed by loading up Gcal in your browser. The scripts for Gmail and Reader are links off that page to other pages. If it didn’t, try again:

    1. Make sure greasemonkey is activated. just because it was installed does not mean it is activated. Go to “Tools” then “Greasemonkey” and make sure it says enabled.

    2. Go to http://www.iamadtaylor.com/helvetical/, and on the left, toward the bottom, is “Install the user script here”. Click that, and a window will open. Click Install This Script.

    3. Restart browser, log back into Gcal. Should be all set.

    The links for Greader and Gmail are links off that page I provided.

  5. 5 Deborah Kunzie said at 7:09 am on September 24th, 2009:

    At one time I was a faithful user of google products. Especially since they are free. And I still use gmail. But I am slowly moving everything to the mac account. Yes, having the mobileme account is a cost for the year. But it is working much more simple. And simple is what I am after. No downloading anything it just works. Syncs with ical, contacts and more.

    I know gmail syncs as well but to much configuring at times for me. I do enough coding during the course of the day.

    Glad it is working for you though. It does for many folks. Me, I am so far sticking with mac :)

  6. 6 Dave said at 7:03 am on September 25th, 2009:

    I couldn’t find the gmail skin (called Helvetimail), so I did a little searching and found the direct link http://www.josefrichter.com/helvetimail/

    A little ways down there’s the section for user scripts if you have grease monkey.

    (Also don’t forget to set your theme in gmail to “minimalist”)

    Thanks for the great post! This really makes gmail look awesome!!

  7. 7 Julien said at 9:25 am on September 28th, 2009:

    Great post, thanks a lot!

  8. 8 Andrea said at 10:50 am on March 10th, 2010:

    Any way to undo Helvetimail so I can resume using the other Google themes? I looked to see whether I could uninstall the scripts but I can’t seem to find them to remove them–or maybe I can just turn them off?

  9. 9 David said at 11:28 am on March 10th, 2010:

    You can turn it off if you go to “Tools” then “Greasemonkey” then “Manage Scripts”. Highlight the one you want to disable, and click off the “Enabled” button at the bottom.

  10. 10 Andrea said at 9:06 am on March 11th, 2010:

    Perfect! Thanks, David. I like that I can still have it ready to enable should I want to go back to the simpler interface again.

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