- In your Gmail app, go to Settings.
- Select your Gmail address.
- Clear the Smart features checkbox.
- Go to Google Workspace smart features.
- Clear the checkboxes for: Smart features in Google Workspace, Smart features in other Google products
- If you have more Gmail accounts, repeat these steps for each one.
- Turning off Gemini in Gmail also disables basic, long-standing features like spellchecking, which predate AI assistants. This design choice discourages opting out and shows how valuable your AI-processed data is for Google.
This has finally gotten me to take steps to deGoogle my email, Fastmail trial underway.
Yeah, this is one of those cases where we can’t let perfection be the enemy of action. I myself I’m in the middle of degoogling as well, and it’s a process that is taking a few months now (and will take some more).
But even if you use a googled android and still use some of their services, simply not defaulting to them for everything goes a long way. Use other browsers, use other search engines, use other email providers, etc.
But the point I was making was more about the privacy side of things. I don’t believe that leaving those AI features on or off makes that much difference at the end of the day. Google will still spy on your content, and if they want to, they will use it for AI training regardless.
I know that their policies and whatnot might say differently, but I don’t trust that they respect them.