Google has added a “contact chooser” to Gmail, which allows users to simply click the “To:” link (or Cc/Bcc:) when composing a message to get a list of contacts from which to choose recipients. Previously, users just had to type the names/addresses in, although there has been an auto-complete feature, which made the process more convenient.

Now however, you can just bring up your list (like pictured below) and click all of the names of people you want to send your message to. As you can see, there is also a search box so you can search you contacts (although, if you’re typing their name in the search box, you might as well just type it in the “To:” form.

contact-chooser

Gmail users who use contact groups will see that their groups appear in a drop-down menu in the contact chooser. You can select these to send messages to pre-created groups this way.

Google notes that the contact chooser should be especially helpful to users who use Gmail in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, since these users are unable to use the auto-complete feature doesn’t work like it does for other languages.

This is just the latest in Gmail’s ongoing and frequent addition of features. They’ve recently added the ability to email a task list and to import old mail and contacts into Gmail also.