Since GMAIL changed its user interface from version 1.0 to 2.0, there were a lot of complaints from all over the world, from users of different browsers (Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, etc..), that their GMAIL works very and very slow.
PROBLEM:
The first and the most frequent slow behavior is discovered by gmail users during login in to their accounts from http://www.gmail.com. This is mostly due to the fact that by default they are using a 2.0 version of Gmail’s User Interface (UI).
It seems that the 2.0 UI was not well “stress tested” and hence it is far from being as scalable as its previous, proven to scale, 1.0 version.
SOLUTION:
Since GMAIL code belongs to GOOGLE and they are actively working on it, it would make sense to trust them with fixing gmail’s 2.0 UI in near future – it is GOOGLE, and it just makes sense to trust them, at least for now it does.
However until that moment comes, when GMAIL 2.0 UI is fixed, here is a quick workaround for the “slow gmail” problem: Instead of going to http://www.gmail.com which brings up 2.0 UI, go to https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1 which explicitly tells gmail to use 1.0 version of UI. This will work as fast as before, and will get you back on track with loving gmail. 
Good luck!
I have noticed a slow gmail behavior for quite a while now. This “solution” is interesting, thank you for the tip.
it is a bit inconvenient, cause it is just more typing in the browser, but it does work. thanks
In modern browsers you can assign this URL to some alias, for example “gmail”
So when you type gmail in the address bar and hit Enter it’ll go to https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1
Thank you for these tips people! I do not need all this 2.0 stuff and my gmail is back to be fast and cool now!
It is unfortunate that Google has this issue open for such a long time already. The problem with 2.0 User Interface can be a quite complex problem: from the quantity of concurrent users to the bad architecture, that will result in redoing a gmail engine.
Hopefully, no matter what the problem is Google mates will be able to fix it soon, without loosing gmail users to Yahoo or Microsoft.
Great tip, thank you for sharing this info.
Lin
Interesting. Thanks for the tip! Seems like a nice, easy (yet temporary) fix for the problem.
Instead of typing all that in, just sign in like normal and then click on Older Version up in the top right. It gets you to version 1.0.
I always go to http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1 and it is SSSSSSSOOOOOOO SLLLOOOOWWWWW
It doesn’t work! For me at least!
Whats wrong with them dummys! They ain’t smart enough to click on the first verson address in this artical, save it to favotites and then put it on the desktop. Guess what ya’ll do after ya’ll do that?
good article
thanks for help
Hi !
I am using firefox and have not seen any slow progress with gmail account. This problem is only in Internet Explorer. IE has many problem actually and I am seriously thinking to not work with IE forever. instead of finding a solution for your gmail account I recommend to not use IE.
Cheers
Siamak,
This is a cross browser problem (even Chrome)
I use Firefox most of the time (90%). 8% goes to Opera, 1% to Chrome, .5% to IE8, .25% to Safari, and all other time goes to IE(6/7)
Can’t believe you posted this in january and they’ve still not fixed it
chat disappears with older ver
Gmail is crazy slow, it is the slowest one!! drive me crazy everytime when i try to login, and my computer is almost freezing.
I discovered a small little hack that drastically improves the speed of the Gmail interface. It’s simply a matter of blocking the download of an image called cleardot.gif. By doing this, of course, a few icons go away, but to me they are trivial and don’t impair my use of Gmail whatsoever. I outline how I did it with Firefox and Adblock Plus here: http://natha.nkinka.de/archives/143
@nkinkade,
Thanks for another hack,
– Toly
thanks for the info ,problem sorted g mail back up to speed
thanks
Ken
i was pretty frustrated with the slowness and it was slowing down my productivity drastically. many thanks for your workaround. still, i hope G will implement a solution soon. i bet they can. they got the best brains there!
Thank you.
ver 1 is SLOW too! at first i thought i was getting re-directed. Too bad because at least gmail gives https option. Thank you.
Finally, the correct fix to the problem!!! thanks so much.
Unistall Skype and if you are running Firefox, make sure the Skype web extension is also uninstalled. Skype also screws up Facebook\’s response time.
While opening gmail account and since it is very very slow, I had stopped using gmail account from one of the computers and I was thinking that something is wrong in that computer in which gmail account was slow. I was thinking that some virus attack has taken place or some other problem is there in that computer. But in my other computers, I was able to work comfortably for my gmail account. That was the other reason of thinking that something is wrong in that particular computer. Toady I thought of giving search command in google search engine to understand whether others are facing the same problem and is there any solution available for the same. Your website ranked no.1 in google search engine for the above problem and solution and the solution mentioned by you is now working very well also in my problematic computer. Thanks for the same. Now I have started using gmail account through the website mentioned by you i.e. https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1. Sometimes some problem occurs in that also but mostly the same is getting resolved also. I hope google will take the gmail new version problem very seriously and try and find the solution, at the earliest. Thanks once again for giving the solution for the mentioned problem.
M. R. Singhal
I’m a new user to gmail and was set up with the newer version, which was REALLY slow for EVERYTHING.
I switched to the older version on the top right corner on the gmail page and it runs like lightning now
I\’ve been using Gmail for a number of years and as a whole really like it. However, recently it has been most frustrating to accomplish very much. Used to be that the older version was in the upper right. Now it\’s moved to the bottom of the screen. I just wish the old version would load by default until the new one is fixed. This slowness is really hindering my business.
It is Skype. After I uninstalled it my Gmail is back to normal.
the solution works thanks
I suspect you and Jack are both correct. Reverting to earlier version of GMail fixed the response time problem for me. On the other hand, this problem has apparently existed for almost 2 years, but I didn’t have problem until recently — when I installed Skype. So, it may be that it’s the combination of Skype and new GMail that causes problems.
nothin is workin for me not even 1.0 version its damn slow m not even able to use the html version of of Gmail. its is very frustrating. even gone to the extent of using mobile version . i think now its high time and i need to switch to yahoo, unless google fix it