Gmail is once again making an effort to become more user-friendly.

Google’s email service is attacking productivity issues. One recent  survey of knowledge workers indicated they spend over a quarter of their time opening and responding to emails. By rolling out a new Gmail inbox design to help users “divide and conquer,” Google hopes to limit the amount of time workers spend sorting through emails.

The updated Gmail includes five inboxes that are accessible from a horizontal line above where the inbox message list is located. Messages will still come in at the same frequency but some will be easier to ignore if they go in either the promotions or forums tabs as opposed to the primary, social or updates tabs.

Gmail’s latest edition is available on desktop browsers along with Gmail for Android 4.0+ and Gmail for iPhone and iPad.  Those who don’t go for ch-ch-changes, as David Bowie might say, can always go with the Classic view rather than see all the tabs.

Google is the world’s most popular email service, according to venturebeat.com, boasting 425 million active users as of last summer.  Whether it’s No. 1,  or in the top three email services as others contend with Yahoo! also in the mix, Google officials say they want users to enjoy their experience rather than labor through it.

“It became obvious to us over time that this notion that the inbox was more of your master than your servant was becoming more widespread,” said Alex Gawley, product manager for Gmail, in an interview with The Verge. “It wasn’t just the people receiving hundreds of emails a day — more regular users were starting to feel stressed out by their inbox.”

Rather than traditional filters that just separate emails, the new Gmail learns by example, meaning if you move mail from one folder to another it will recall that information and do the same with future emails of that nature.

Not everyone will see the new Gmail features immediately, however. One way to check if you have access is by going to the gear icon and looking for the “Configure inbox” option.  Another way to see if you have access to the new inbox is via the appearance of a Categories menu and disclosure triangle in the left-hand menu pane, located just below the Trash menu.

The Categories menu will then collapse the five tabs into a unified view, with colored category labels becoming visible on the vertical message list.