this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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405
How to turn off Gemini in Gmail — and why you should | Proton (proton.me)
submitted 5 days ago by pageflight@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
63 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
  • 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.

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[–] gravitas@pie.gravitywell.xyz 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (10 children)

How to turn off Gemini in one step:

  1. Stop using google's services.

If i was actually running my own competing service I'd probably suggest switching to it instead of writing a blog post to help people use my competition, but i guess thats why I don't work in marketing, this must be some big brained 4-d chess move.

Why does it matter if its googles "AI' slurping up your emails, or just their massive advertising and tracking network? Do the ads seem less intrusive if they're just coming from adsense instead of gemini? Are people actually foolish enough to think "disabling" a feature like this actually stops google from constantly scanning every single one of their emails?

I'm going to call this now, Proton will be just as bad as google in 5-10 years. It shows in how they are totally bad faith promoting themselves as a better alternative they have one goal in mind and it's the same one as cancer.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (9 children)

but i guess thats why I don’t work in marketing

Yeah, I guess it is, because this article works in Proton's favor on multiple levels:

  • Plenty of Proton users have switched over from Gmail, still have their old account, and still, even with forwarding, occasionally need to use those old addresses.
  • People who search for or are sent a guide who've never or rarely heard of Proton might end up on their site and read a guide that lambasts Google and its usage of AI.
  • Meanwhile, Proton's alternative product is being advertised everywhere on the page outside the guide and even is advertised within it.
  • These guides are going to exist anyway (many, in fact). You're acting like this is some extremely niche thing users might want to do. Having your own guide but poisoned with your marketing when you're the underdog is a sound idea.
  • This gives a benevolent image of "Good Guy Proton" who just wants to keep people's data private regardless of business – and a "Bad Guy Google" image because it's apparently so dire that their competition has to do this.
  • Consumers becoming more privacy-conscious generally is a boon long-term for businesses like Proton.

You're so smarmy about this but just come off as a complete dipshit who gave this two seconds of thought.

[–] gravitas@pie.gravitywell.xyz 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

The post is just an ad disguised as a guide and absolutely pointless. You know what else will show people how to disable gemini, googles own ai based search (which now sources protons guide, well above the actual search result that links back to proton)

Sorry if my aversion to advertising comes off as smarmy, im tired of seeing companies go from focusing on providing one good service like email and trying to become the next one corp fits all replacement for google. Instead of doing one thing extremely well it becomes a race to do as many things as they can and get people to replace one monolith with another. 

Proton is the most recent to make this shift and its obvious they want to be like google but with "privacy" as a gimmic because its only private until they get a government order telling them to do something to unmask a user or monitor an email.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The post is just an ad disguised as a guide

Jack Nicholson nodding GIF

That said:

its obvious they want to be like google but with "privacy" as a gimmic because its only private until they get a government order telling them to do something to unmask a user or monitor an email.

Besides the fact that Proton is based in Switzerland where government warrants aren't issued willy-nilly, please learn how the mathematics behind encryption works – or, if not, at least trust that it does. For emails that are sent E2EE, Proton can only have garbled data that requires a key they don't have.

You're just constantly talking out your ass, and I have no idea why; it's so unearned. Like I'm not going to debate you on whether ads or corporations are good because a) I broadly agree and b) that's just, like, our opinions, man, but then you just say shit that's so demonstrably untrue that all I can think is: "I fucking hate what this decade has done to people."

[–] gravitas@pie.gravitywell.xyz 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Besides the fact that Proton is based in Switzerland where government warrants aren't issued willy-nilly, please learn how the mathematics behind encryption works – or, if not, at least trust that it does. For emails that are sent E2EE, Proton can only have garbled data that requires a key they don't have.

Email is not end to end encrypted and this is the first of protons many misleading claims. Best case the contents is encrypted but not info like recipents address or sender's IP. Leading to less knowledgeable activists not understanding that using protons vpn and their email together can actually lead to users giving proton more then enough info for law enforcement to track someo e down.

Proton doesnt even hide this if you look at their reports they comply with court orders regularly. In theory proton could also back door any of their users keys since everything is done on the fly in the browser and proton controls all of the code. This is something their predecessors had been ordered to do and chose to shutdown instead of complying. Somehow i dont see proton opting to close up shop just to protect a few users who theyre told are criminals.

People who actually care about encryption already had a solution long before proton, called PGP and thats yet to be broken. Why other then vendor lock in would you encourage people to use anything else? (this is a criticism i have of tuta also)

Also just fyi proton moved out of Switzerland last year for guess what... Legal reasons!

Glad to hear you agree with me and dont want to debate because literally none of what ive said is speculative.

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