Gmail update brings Microsoft Office document editing directly from your inbox

If you peek inside your Gmail inbox today, you might notice a feature that wasn’t previously available. Google has added an option to edit attachments containing Microsoft Office documents with one simple click, making it possible to start the editing process directly from your inbox.

Users that have already received the update will now notice an “Edit with Google Docs” option on the far right side of the attached document when hovering over it. Pressing it will convert it to the appropriate Google format, and redirects you to Google Docs where the file is automatically opened and ready for editing:

For those that require the option of editing an Office file without changing the actual extension, Google recommends downloading the “Office editing for Docs, Sheets, and Slides” Chrome extension, which can be downloaded here. Keep in mind that all of the mentioned changes are relevant to the desktop version of Gmail, not the mobile application.

The Google+ page from the Drive team also stated that 15 new Microsoft Office formats have been added to the list of supported file types that can be edited within Google Docs. You can find out more about editing options in Google Docs via Google’s support page here.