Gmail – What does shva=1#inbox mean when Gmail loads

gmail

I recently noticed that when opening my Gmail account, the URL gets changed to ?shva=1#inbox at the end (this can be noticed in the address bar).

This happens not only to my Gmail ID, but to others as well. This make me think that Gmail provides a common interface to all its users and changes it accordingly.

What happens in the background, and what does the shva=1#inbox part mean?

Best Answer

When you log in, the system wants to know if it's a valid account or whether it should kick you back to the login screen.

According to Mike Sego, a former Gmail engineer, "shva" is an acronym for "should have valid authentication". Apparently, the parameter is only included after a successful authentication.

The 1 is the default value applied to the parameter check. It's also a shorthand way for programmers to say true, like when you have successfully logged in.

The other part, #inbox, tells Gmail to load up your inbox as the first screen. You can change that to one of the other folders (or even labels you've created) to load them up.

E.g., https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#sent will show your Sent folder items.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#label/narwhals will load up your "narwhals" label.

Gmail, like many web services, serves a standard interface that will change to show only your information and data when you've logged in.

The particulars are referenced on their end through the use of an ID from the cookies or sessions generated after the login screen.

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This Stack Overflow answer explains how the JS bit works

This is the code in charge of it. Looks like it is based on a time computation being mapped to a number of Bytes.

function updateQuota() {
  if (!quota_elem) {
  return;
  }
  var now = (new Date()).getTime();
  var i;
  for (i = 0; i < CP.length; i++) {
    if (now < CP[i][0]) {
      break;
    }
  }
  if (i == 0) {
    setTimeout(updateQuota, 1000); 
  } else if (i == CP.length) {
    quota_elem.innerHTML = CP[i - 1][3];
  } else {
    var ts = CP[i - 1][0];
    var bs = CP[i - 1][4];
    quota_elem.innerHTML = format(((now-ts) / (CP[i][0]-ts) * (CP[i][5]-bs)) + bs); 
    setTimeout(updateQuota, 1000); 
  } 
} 

var PAD = '.000000';

Best Answer

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