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When I paste anything on Gmail these two little squares will show up:

enter image description here

Looks like two characters, I can cut them as I can do with any text, but when I paste there's nothing to paste. Any idea what this is?

By the way, I use Boomerang for Gmail, not sure if it's related.

--update:

It shows up always in the end of the mail, after the signature, even if I paste something in the beginning of the text.

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11
  • That's odd. Do you see them when you paste anywhere else?
    – ale
    Dec 21, 2013 at 15:17
  • @Krampus not, only on GMail.
    – The Student
    Dec 21, 2013 at 18:49
  • I don't have enough reputation to comment, but I remember having a similar issue about a year ago. I'm curious, does it happen to you only when using a specific browser?
    – CodyBugstein
    Dec 22, 2013 at 15:40
  • 1
    @Imray looks like it's only on Firefox... Not happen on Chrome.
    – The Student
    Dec 23, 2013 at 14:06
  • 1
    My guess is they should be unicode characters something like end-of-line and such..
    – Aditya
    Dec 25, 2013 at 9:24

5 Answers 5

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2

It was indeed an issue with Boomerang on Firefox.

Thanks to Michael Hoffman for letting us know about the issue. We released a fix for this last week. If you are still seeing this, make sure you have the latest version and reload Gmail after clearing cache.

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2

Try cutting the 2 dots and pasting them into the online hex editor at http://www.edithex.com/ and then click the Convert button.

Then copy and paste the results here.

I’m guessing the 2 dots are control characters, such as EOL, or EOF but we should be able to work out what they represent, when you paste the hex codes for the characters here.

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2
  • I have this problem too. I pasted an X on either side of the two little squares. When I paste into edithex.com, I get only XX (58 58). The squares are missing.
    – Michael Hoffman
    Jan 4, 2014 at 20:22
  • I can cut, but there's nothing when I paste...
    – The Student
    Jan 6, 2014 at 11:46
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+50

I remember something like this when I was using Boomerang for Gmail in the Chrome Browser but I can't remember the details. I agree, might be control characters.

What happens when you try this on a computer without Boomerang installed?

Trying it without Boomerang might eliminate that as a culprit.

Other things to check:

  • Is the latest version of Boomerang installed?
  • Are there other extensions or plugins installed that might be conflicting?

I no longer use Boomerang or I would test it again.

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5
  • 1
    I had this problem too on Firefox. Just disabled Boomerang and the problem went away.
    – Michael Hoffman
    Jan 4, 2014 at 20:24
  • Still not sure what's the meaning of those dots/squares, but it really looks like Boomerang's stuff anyway.
    – The Student
    Jan 6, 2014 at 11:47
  • Baydin, the makers of Boomerang, say they are looking into it. twitter.com/baydin/status/419644359970013187
    – Michael Hoffman
    Jan 6, 2014 at 14:28
  • Baydin posted an answer here to follow-up.
    – ale
    Jan 14, 2014 at 1:18
  • Glad to hear this is now fixed. Boomerang is a great tool for that missing "manage this email later" feature. More useful than you might first guess.
    – Kevan Sheridan
    Jan 14, 2014 at 19:38
0

Check out the signature text of your account in Settings.

Also check in "Labs" tab of settings if you have enabled any unnecessary apps.

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-1

Looks like it's an attempt to attach an image to your email body

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1

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