Gmail is introducing a new Purchases view that will act as a catch-all for order confirmations and delivery updates inside your inbox. It’s a relatively small change with an outsized convenience: Rather than hunting through receipts and shipping notifications, you’ll have a dedicated feed of what you bought and where it is now.
What the new Purchases view does
Your account is now equipped with a Purchases entry in Gmail’s left-hand navigation. You click it, and Gmail windsockettes its way down to emails associated with online orders — receipts, shipment notifications, delivery confirmations — whether an item has left the warehouse or not.
Gmail’s current package tracking cards still exist on the platform. The little reminder that comes out to meet parcels due within the next 24 hours is still pinned at the top of your inbox, so you can sneak a peek of what’s landing soon without scrolling.
How Gmail knows about your orders
The Purchases view is based on a skill of Gmail that I’ve also written about in the past: its capacity to recognize structured information within email. Many merchants embed schema-based metadata — like order numbers, delivery windows, carriers and item summaries, so Gmail can present you with a unified snapshot even if you shop at half a dozen different stores.
If a merchant doesn’t use structured data, Gmail derives details through machine learning. That’s akin to how the service already groups messages by Primary, Promotions and Updates — not to mention extracting travel itineraries and calendar events. The result: even plain-text receipts commonly appear correctly.
Why this matters now
Online shopping volume has exploded, and inboxes have rapidly expanded. Through its Digital Economy Index, Adobe has tracked U.S. e‑commerce spending surpassing 1 trillion dollars annually, and the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index reported over 160 billion parcels shipped worldwide in one year. A shared view cuts down the hassle of sorting that flood of confirmations and status pings.
It also makes shared monitoring easier for busy households. Viola! If you’re dealing with school supplies, home essentials and returns in more than one marketplace, a single Purchases feed is simpler than sorting by labels or creating filters that you’ll forget to update.
Privacy and control
Google has said that Purchases is based on the same intelligent features in Gmail and doesn’t affect how ads work. The company has long said it does not scan the content of Gmail messages for ad targeting. If you would like to reduce the level of automation, you can sign out of the new version or deactivate package tracking in Gmail settings or turn off “Smart features and personalization,” which restricts how Gmail extracts information from your messages to show it on the screen.
For the privacy‑minded, it may also be time to review both your Google Account’s activity controls and the Purchases and bookings section in your account settings. That’s where you can view and manage store-related data that surfaces in emails across Google services.
How it plays out in practice
Picture this: You order headphones from a marketplace, a pantry restock from a big-box retailer and a shirt from a direct-to-consumer brand. Purchases places them in one view, not three threads by two categories. Click any entry to go right to the original message for return policies and tracking links or support chats.
Merchants that are structured email markup-compliant usually create the cleanest summaries. The retailer name, order total and expected delivery window are surfaced fairly consistently no matter which carrier is delivering your package — even across competing couriers like UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL.
Relevance boost to the Promotions tab
In addition to Purchases, Gmail is introducing a feature that allows users to sort the Promotions category by “most relevant.” Google hasn’t explained its entire recipe for ranking, but signals likely include your engagement with a brand and the recency of a message. The idea is to elevate likely keepers — discounts from stores you actually open — above the standard mailer.
For deal-hunting, it is worth toggling between default and “most relevant” views so you don’t overlook time-sensitive deals that have not quite won a click. Labels and filters you’ve set up continue to work as they always have.
The Best Ways to Get the Most Out of Purchases
Turn on package tracking in Gmail settings to have arrivals pop to the top of your inbox. Star or label receipts you may need for returns or warranties; the Purchases view doesn’t replace your filing system but significantly speeds up retrieval. Use alias addresses, or plus-addressing (yourname+shopping@…), to channel some of them into a dedicated label that can be seen in Purchases by other members of your household.
Finally, stay alert to phishing. Concentrating valid receipts in one place can help flush out fake “delivery failed” notices. Consumer protection groups and security researchers have said that fake shipping notices are as popular a lure as ever, so don’t trust any of them; consult the Purchases view to be absolutely sure before clicking on tracking links.
Gmail’s Purchases view isn’t going to get the last-mile truck there any quicker, but it will make your inbox feel more like an office with less of a loading dock. For anyone who shops online even a few times each month, that’s worth it.