Yesterday Google unveiled a great new feature for Gmail and other Google services, which allows you to sign into more than one Google Account at the same time, with no need to use separate browsers, or constantly signing in and out of one or the other.
The drop-down menu used to switch accounts when multi-login is enabled.
Once you enable multiple accounts, the account name that appears on the top-right area of the window now features a drop-down menu that allows you to switch accounts. You may be thinking that you cannot use two accounts really at once, but that you would only be able to easily switch. But this is not the case. You can actually keep two or more different tabs or windows in your browser open at the same time with different Gmail accounts.
A word of caution
Google is not shy about warning you of the drawbacks of this new setting and the care you need to take when using the different available Google services from each account you are logged into. First of all, not all services currently support the multiple accounts setup, so they will default to the primary account, which is the one you logged into first, and the one from which you setup the login for the extra accounts. Also, offline Gmail and Calendar are not supported if you enable this new feature.
Clearly, you need to be specially aware of what you are doing and what it means during your workflow. This is particularly true while using the Gmail service, because you could end up sending an email from the wrong account! This is where Gmail themes come very handy. You can apply different themes to different Gmail accounts, to visually and instantly distinguish where you are standing at.
Anyway, surely this new quirk is very welcome. I wonder why Google is always hitting the nail in the head, and I certainly hope they keep performing that way.