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Isn't that kind of a poor choice then if the intent is to have the user hover over the icon? Also what about touch?

If there was a functional advantage of the icons that would be great. But I'm guessing it was chosen just to "look prettier".

Icons take up less space on the screen, which is useful if you are using a smaller browser window (or a phone screen).

But the trend, and the default GMail settings for UI spacing is far too spaced out. I'm finding it difficult to use some of the newer UI's with such wide spacing, without using the app fullscreen. Microsoft CRM, I'm looking at you. It's 100% not usable unless it's full screen.

Except that forces you to hover over each one of them until you find what you're looking for, rather than simply writing out e.g. "Mark as SPAM" or "Mark as read"

Until you learn what they mean, and then you get the advantage of more fits on the screen, and arguably, quicker mental processing (I'd say it takes less work to find an icon than to pick out the right text label).

What about keyboard or touch users that don't exactly have a "hover" equivalent?

You can switch to text labels:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/2473038?hl=en&authuse...

Fortunately