Gemini App Switches To Always Available Nav Drawer On Android

Google is updating the Gemini app on Android with a nav drawer, just like on the web, that brings a number of usability upgrades.

Previously, the top-left corner of the Gemini app featured a ‘chat’ icon that opened the “Chat & Gems” page. It showed your five most recent conversations and Gems. To access more, you’d have to tap through to the full page.

Old

There’s now a hamburger button that slides open a navigation drawer. Just like on gemini.google.com, the first item is a “New chat” button followed by two of your most recent Gems and a link to “Explore Gems.” The “Recent” history list offers infinite scrolling, which the web picked up in early May. Your pinned conversations appear first.

Notably, this nav drawer can be accessed when you’re viewing a conversation and most other pages in the Gemini app. Instead of appearing over content, this component slides the main screen over to the right.

New

On Android tablets, the navigation drawer is automatically open, but can be hidden to get a fullscreen experience, like when you’re chatting. It looks exactly like the website.

Gemini’s new nav drawer is rolling out with Google app 16.23, which is currently in beta. After updating, you might need to Force stop from App info.