Google incorporates Predictive Back gesture in Android 14 for Gmail

On Android 14, Google has offered Predictive Back feature. When using the back feature on an Android device, the user can receive a preview of the page they are returning to. For app developers, this has been a major issue because it has been discovered that frequently, an Android user has unintentionally backed out of an app by mistake because they are unsure of where the back motion would lead them. On an Android device, to make the back gesture, carefully swipe from the right side of the screen left until you see a left-facing arrow inside a circle. The user returns to his previous screen after removing his finger off it.

The predictive back gesture shows an Android user a preview of where he will be taken to if he uses the back gesture. There are only three possible destinations: a previous page in the same app, a previous app, or the home screen. The back gesture on Android requires the user to slowly swipe left from the right side of the screen until a left-facing arrow inside a circle appears. Once the user pulls his finger off of the display, he goes back to the previous page. The same thing is accomplished by slowly swiping to the right from the left side of the display, letting go when a right-facing arrow inside a circle shows up on the display.

Google still has not enabled predictive back with Android 14 and it still must be toggled on by going to Settings > Developer options > Predictive back animations: Enable system animations for predictive back. It has been recently spotted the Predictive Back Gesture in version 2024.03.03.x of Gmail when closing an email. When starting the back gesture, the email users are closing shrinks to show rounded corners, and a small preview of the page users are going back to appears behind the page they are currently viewing.