Since Google introduced Gmail in 2004, it has become one of the most popular email messaging services, gaining over 1.5 billion users worldwide. With increasing digital communication, many people use Gmail because it’s quick, free, and easy to use.
But are all those users getting the most out of their Gmail accounts? We would argue not because this email server has so much untapped potential.
Most working people spend a large chunk of their work time managing emails. Whether you’re filtering through your messages, writing an email, or organizing your emails into folders. Rather than doing these tasks manually, you can streamline these processes, giving you more time on other essential tasks.
Therefore, we have compiled 45 Gmail tips and tricks that can improve your email life’s efficiency, making it easier and a lot less stressful. We have everything from Gmail organization tips to sorting out account settings. Read on to find out how to maximize your Gmail account’s benefits.
Make sure you don’t miss: Workplace Email Communication Tips
This Article Covers:
45 Best Gmail Tips and Tricks 2024 Has to Offer
Take a scan through our 45 valuable tips. You’ll surely find at least one that will dramatically improve your email life.
1. Using Multiple Accounts
Suppose you have multiple Google accounts for various purposes. In that case, Gmail has a feature that allows you to add multiple Gmail accounts and easily switch them without going through the arduous process of signing in every time.
Sign in with your primary Gmail account first, and then click on your avatar. You will see an option to “Add another account.” Simply click this option to add your additional Gmail accounts, and once they have been added, you can move between your accounts by clicking on your avatar in the top right corner.
2. Recalling a Message Using Undo Send
Sometimes, you may instantly regret sending a message. You may want to reword the message, or you may have sent it to the wrong person. Or even worse—you may have attached something sensitive you didn’t mean to! Regardless of the reason, Gmail allows users to recall a message with just one click. This is one of our favorites among all the Gmail hacks, tips, and tricks.
Gmail gives its users a short period to recall a sent email. To use this feature, you must activate it. You can do this by going to “Settings” and enabling the “Undo Send” option. You can also set the cancellation period using the drop-down menu.
After enabling this, every time you send a message, an “Undo Send” button will appear for a short period, allowing you to undo your message.
3. Need to Repeat the Same Message Multiple Times? Use Canned Responses and Templates
Sometimes you must repeat the same message, which can be tedious and exhausting. Another useful Gmail feature is using canned responses, allowing you to pre-write and format emails so you can quick-send them whenever you need to.
You create your canned responses by using Gmail’s template feature. To enable this feature, go to your “Account Settings” > “Advanced” > “Templates.”
Once you have enabled the templates, you can:
- Write a message like you usually would
- Click on “More Options” > “Templates.”
- Click on “Save draft as a template” to save the written message as a template. If you have any older templates that you no longer need, you can also delete them here.
Once you’ve set up your templates, you can use them whenever you compose a message or send an email reply by clicking on the “Three-dots,” going to “Templates,” and selecting the template you need! Handy, huh?
4. Smart Compose
Gmail’s Smart Compose feature recommends different words and phrases to help users complete their sentences more efficiently. The built-in feature predicts what the user might say next and shows the suggestion as light grey text in front of the keyboard cursor on the screen. The user must press the “Tab” key to accept the suggestion.
You can activate this feature by going to “Settings” > “General” >“Smart Compose.” To activate this feature, click the button to turn on the “Writing Suggestions.” To personalize the suggestions, you can also turn on “Smart Compose Personalization.”
5. Scheduled Emails
Only some have enough time to reply to emails 24 hours a day. The email scheduling feature in Gmail helps fix this inconvenience, allowing the user to compose and schedule emails in advance.
You can do this by simply writing your message, and before sending it, click on the blue arrow button to “Schedule send” next to the “Send” button.
Below is a screenshot showing a menu allowing users to pick the time and date to send their message.
This feature is also available on mobile Gmail apps, making it a handy tool for users who communicate with others in different time zones.
You can also Schedule Emails in advance in Outlook.
6. Navigate Your Inbox Like a Pro with Shortcuts
Gmail gives its users several keyboard shortcuts, making managing their email system more efficiently easier. One of the best email tricks we can show you is using keyboard shortcuts to speed up your email management.
To enable keyboard shortcuts:
- Head to “Settings” > “General” > “Keyboard shortcuts.”
- Turn on the “Keyboard shortcuts.”
- To see the Gmail shortcuts, press the “Shift” and the “?” keys together. This will then display the whole list of shortcuts.
Here are some of our favorite shortcuts:
- Ctrl (or Command) + Enter – Send your email
- Ctrl (or Command) + K – Add a link to your email’s message body
- G + I – Go to your inbox
- G + K – Go to your tasks
- C – Compose an email
- D – Compose an email in a new browser tab
- ? – Start typing in your search bar
You can check out Google’s support page if you’d like to know more about what shortcuts are available.
7. Send Email From a Different Email Address
Gmail has a neat feature that allows users to send emails from different email accounts through the same inbox. This differs from having multiple Gmail accounts because it will enable you to use any email ID, not just the Google one.
To set it up:
- Go to “Settings” > “Accounts and Import” > “Send mail as”
- Click on “Add another email address you own” to add your additional email account.
- Click “Next Step” > “Send verification” to change your “From” address in the compose window.
8. Labels & Filters
Gmail allows users to organize their inboxes by tagging emails using labels. This is helpful because users can manage and categorize their emails more quickly. You can also apply multiple tags to an email to find that email under both labels.
You can create a label in the left sidebar by scrolling down and clicking “Create new label.” This will allow you to set a name for your label and create sub-labels for existing labels in your inbox.
You can also do this using the Gmail app for smartphones.
9. Snooze Desktop Notifications
Sometimes, you don’t want to reply to a message, or maybe you’re busy and don’t want to be disturbed by constant desktop notifications. In this case, Gmail has a snooze feature, which hides the incoming messages and displays them at a time of your choosing.
To enable snooze messages:
- Hover over an email. You should see a clock icon on the right-hand side
- Click it, and you can choose a time and date for the email to reappear in your inbox.
- Your snoozed emails will be stored in the Snoozed folder, which you can access in the left-hand sidebar.
10. Mute Emails
Sometimes, you may get an annoying email where you want to avoid receiving desktop notifications. In this case, you can mute the thread. To do this, simply click on the three dots and then the “Mute” button. To unmute the thread, simply click the “Unmute” button.
11. Archive Emails
Sometimes, you may want to unclutter your inbox, but you need to keep an email because it has essential information. In this case, you can archive an email to remove it from your inbox and store it separately.
To do this, select the email that you want to keep. Once it is selected, you will see the archive icon on the right-hand side next to the delete option. Your archived emails are in the “All mail” tab on the left-hand sidebar.
12. Create Calendar Events
You can create events on Google Calendar straight from your Gmail inbox. This is a beneficial feature, as it establishes reminders for important events synced with your Google Calendar on your smartphone, notifying you accordingly.
To do this:
- Open the email message and click the three dots below the search bar
- Click the “Create event” dialog box. This will take you to a Google Calendar tab or window
- Add the specific details of the reminder
Related reading: How to Propose a New Time in Google Calendar
13. Best Gmail Tips and Tricks for Searching Your Inbox
Scrolling through thousands of emails can be challenging. Even with proper labels, you may want to find a specific email quickly. Here are some helpful Gmail search tips to quickly find whatever you need in your inbox.
- In your inbox, click on the search bar to bring up some quick parameters, which you can set. Click on the buttons underneath the search field to find emails that match the search criteria.
- If those parameters aren’t enough to help you find the emails you seek, you can use the search options built into Gmail. Simply click on the search options icon on the right-hand side of your search bar.
- Once you click on the configure inbox icon, it will bring up the search options to configure your advanced search. Here, you can search for emails received from certain people, sent to specific recipients, have a specific subject, or contains particular words.
- Configure all the search parameters you need, then type your keyword in the search bar and click “Search.”
You can also use search operators in the Gmail search bar to see your emails quickly. Search operators tell the search engine to include or exclude specific emails that meet the operator’s parameters.
Mastering Gmail’s robust features can mean you never lose an email again! Here are a few search operators that can make your email searches significantly easier:
- “older_than:xd” (replace x with the number of days) – This allows you to view emails older than a specific number of days. For example, use “older_than:10d” to view emails older than ten days. 0It’s helpful to filter out old emails.
- “+” (write a keyword after the plus sign) – This allows you to search for an exact word in your emails. For example, writing “+work” will show results for every email with the word “work” in your inbox.
- “Size:xm” (replace x with the size) – This allows you to find emails in your inbox of a specific size. For example, if you write “size:10m” in the search bar, every Gmail message over 10MB will appear in the results.
- “In:all” – This tells Gmail to search everywhere for your keywords, including your inbox, archived emails, all your folders, and even your trash. For example, if you type “in:all RSVP” and click search or press enter, Gmail will show you all your emails located everywhere with the word RSVP in them. You can use any word or phrase you need, just remember to put a space after “in:all” before your keyword/phrase.
- You can also replace “all” with whatever location you want Gmail to search. For example, if you want to search just your inbox, type “in:inbox” and if you want to search your sent emails, type “in:sent” and so on.
- “Filename:jpg” – You can use this search operator to find all emails with files of a specific type. It doesn’t have to be just JPG files either, you can use pretty much any file extension you can think of.
Want to find an email with a PDF attachment? Type “filename:pdf.” Want to find all your emails with a PDF attachment containing your bank statements? Take it one step further and type “filename:pdf statement” and Gmail will return all the emails in your account with the word statement in the email and a PDF attachment. Use this operator to search for any file type you need, as long as you know the extension.
- Alternatively, if you want to find files that have a specific word in the filename, you can type “filename:statement.pdf” and Gmail will return all emails that have a PDF attachment with the word statement in the file name.
- “Is:important” – The is: operator allows you to find emails that could be important, unread, read, and so on. You can even use two is: operators together to search for emails that fit both parameters. For example, if you urgently need to find important and unread emails in your massive inbox.
14. Block Spammers
Unfortunately, most of us have our inboxes filled with spam and unwanted emails. While you can ignore the spam, usually, it builds up fairly quickly and uses up a lot of your Gmail storage space. Even though Gmail deletes unread spam emails after 30 days, it would still be helpful if you didn’t receive spam in the first place. Fortunately, Gmail allows you to block spammers, so you don’t receive new emails from them.
To enable this, follow the instructions below:
- Go to the email by the person you want to block and click on the three dots on the right-hand side
- You will see an option called “Block (name).” Clicking this will block the person and restrict any further messages from them.
15. Use Gmail Offline
Gmail has a nifty feature that allows you to read your emails offline and even reply to them without an internet connection. However, you must have the Google Chrome browser on your computer to use this function.
You can enable this easily by going to “Settings” > “Offline” tab > “Enable offline mail.” You can also set how many days of emails you want to be synced and choose various security options.
16. Confidential Emails
Sometimes, your emails may contain sensitive information, which you don’t want to get into the wrong hands. This is where Gmail’s confidential mode comes in. It allows you to prevent your recipients from forwarding, copying, printing, or downloading your emails.
To send a confidential email, compose an email like you usually would. At the bottom of the screen, you will see a lock icon to set an expiration date for the email. This means both the email and any attachments in that email will be deleted at the time of expiration.
You can then grant access to the email through a code sent to your recipient through an email or a scheduled text message on their phone.
17. Sending Money
Gmail also allows the seamless transfer of funds through email, but it requires both users to use Google Pay. This is perfect for existing users who use Google Pay, as they can transfer money more easily and frequently to people they communicate via email.
Simply compose your email like usual, and click the $ button to use this feature. This will show a menu that allows you to request or send money. You can type in the amount and an optional note if you send money. Then click “Attach Money” to send the money through email.
18. App Access and Auto Sign In
Google has a variety of services that it offers to its users. These related services allow users to transfer data between Google services seamlessly. Many applications and services have also started integrating Gmail accounts into their infrastructures. You may have noticed “sign-in with Google” popping up in your favorite third-party apps. This allows users to make sign-in processes easier but at the cost of their personal information.
You can revoke permission to access your data by going to your Google account, scrolling to the “Third-party apps” with the account access section, and clicking “Manage third-party accounts” you’ve linked to Google. Now you will be presented with all the third-party services you have connected to your Google account. You can simply disconnect the ones you don’t want.
19. Unsubscribe Junk Mail
If you use your email address to sign up for several websites, your inbox is more prone to junk than relevant messages. Scrolling your whole email list, finding every single email, and unsubscribing can be tedious.
Instead, you can just search for “unsubscribe” in the search bar, which will display every email containing the word “unsubscribe” to appear. Legally, junk mail senders must have an unsubscribe clause at the bottom of their emails. Now, you can simply open and unsubscribe from all the services you don’t want junk mail from.
20. Unsubscribe From Everything
Sometimes you have too many services you want to unsubscribe from, and it would be too time-consuming to do it all individually. In this case, you can unsubscribe from everything you don’t want in one go.
Unfortunately, no matter how much you search Gmail for tips, you probably won’t find a built-in solution for this problem. The answer? A third-party service explicitly made for this purpose.
Here are a couple you can look at:
- Clean.Email has a feature that allows you to unsubscribe from unwanted mailing lists and emails. You can also unsubscribe and block senders to ensure you never get anything from that sender again. If you want a short reprieve from certain subscriptions, Clean.Email allows you to pause subscriptions and more.
Unfortunately, Clean.Email is a paid service that starts at $9.99 per month for one account. If you’d like to subscribe for a year, you save a lot of money, paying only $29.99. Note that a one-month subscription is more than enough if you just want to use the mass unsubscribe feature!
- Unroll.me is a similar service but for mobile devices. It is an app available on iOS and Android that allows users to unsubscribe from all the unnecessary stuff they don’t need in their inbox.
21. Organizing Tasks
Gmail offers its users a built-in task organizer. When dealing with dozens of emails per day, it can be hard to remember all your important tasks. In this case, having a to-do list helps a lot.
This is one of the best productivity email tips you can use every single day. Gmail’s built-in list maker lets you keep your emails and your tasks in sync. You can access your tasks by clicking on the “Tasks” icon on the right-hand side of your Gmail toolbox. The icon is a checkmark in a blue circle.
22. Attaching Attachments
Gmail instantly sends a reminder if you forget to attach your attachments with a message if it includes phrases similar to “I have attached,” and you hit send. This may or may not be a feature you’re already familiar with. If you haven’t come across it yet, it’s still nice to know it’s there — just in case.
You can simply drag and drop your files onto your composed message to add your attachments. Images can be embedded into the message or can be attached separately. There is a limit of 25MB per email. If you have a larger file, it will be sent through Google Drive instead, and a link will be sent to the recipient.
You can also send files usually blocked by Gmail through Drive, such as .exe files.
23. Adding a Delegate
You can add another person as a delegate to your account and allow them to share control of your Gmail account. You can share your Gmail account with a company admin or your family member.
You can set it up by:
- Going to “Settings” > “Accounts and Import”
- Click on “Grant access to your account”
- Click on “Add another account”
The person who you’re adding as a delegate must have a Gmail or a Google account for you to add them as a delegate. If you see a name you didn’t add as a delegate, remove it immediately and change your password.
24. Delete Big Messages
If you receive many attachments with their emails, you will find out that your storage space runs out fairly quickly. You don’t always have to pay more to get the extra storage if you don’t need to. Out of all the Gmail tips here, this might be the best one you’ll learn.
We have already discussed search operators that you can use to assist you in finding messages with a larger size and delete them if not needed, or you can just back them up on your hard drive.
Saving them to Google Drive isn’t viable as that’s the space shared with Gmail. Instead, use the “size:xm” and replace the “x” with your preferred file size. Anything over 10MB can fill up your storage reasonably quickly.
From there, you can check their boxes and bulk delete the larger emails by hitting the trash icon.
25. Keep All Related Emails Together in One Thread
If you find your inbox overflowing with emails you wish you could have just combined, good news: there’s a way to do it! If “Conversation view” isn’t already enabled on your Gmail account, you can allow it to make sure that all responses to an email go in the same place as a “thread.”
Enabling the conversation view is extremely simple. You can do this by clicking “Settings” to open up quick settings. After clicking the “Settings” icon, scroll down till you can see “Conversation View.” Click on the button to turn it on — and that’s it!
26. Create an Alias (One of the Best General Email Tips)
This is one of the handiest privacy features built into Gmail and easily one of the best Gmail tips and tricks you’ll ever learn. It allows you to create a new email address by creating an alias. This way, having different aliases means you can have a different name for each service. For example, you can have one alias for your subscriptions and another for your family emails.
This can easily be done by adding a plus sign and a word after your username to your email address. It should look something like this: “email+alias@gmail.com”
Out of all the Gmail address tricks, this one is one to remember — especially since it is also a sneaky way to see if a company gives out your email address to other companies. When you receive an unknown message, just check what email address it was sent to, and you can narrow down which company may be selling your data.
27. Set a Theme and Customize Your Gmail
If you ever get sick of your email inbox looking plain, there’s always the option of using a theme! Themes come built into Gmail’s website, so you don’t have to install anything extra. There is a small library of pre-set themes you can select from, including photo-based themes or themes made out of solid colors.
To select your theme, follow the instructions below:
- Navigate to your settings page by clicking on the settings cog wheel on the top right-hand corner of your Gmail screen. From the “Quick settings” drop-down menu, select “See all settings.”
- The next page will include your settings for everything related to your Gmail account, but you don’t need to worry about all of that. Locate “Themes” — it’s a tab on the menu. If your monitor resolution isn’t 1920×1080, you may have the “Themes” link text wrapped onto the second row.
- Click on “Themes” > “Set theme” to bring up the pop-up window to see the different theme options.
- In the pop-up window, you can select any theme you prefer. There are some available in solid colors and some with high-definition photos. You can also upload your own photo to personalize your theme. Note that you can also set the theme back to the Gmail default in the same window.
- You can customize your theme with the three customization options on the bottom bar (next to cancel/save). Let’s talk about that quickly:
- The text background setting allows you to choose the color of the text backgrounds in your primary inbox. There are only two options: light or dark — but often, that’s more than enough to get a theme you like.
- The vignette adds dark shading to the outer corners of your background, which is a nice effect if you want to fade out some of the background images, so it is not too distracting. You can also adjust the slider to get the level you want.
- The blur does what it says on the tin — blurs your background image as much as you’d like via the slider.
- Once you’ve set everything to your liking (previews will happen in real time, except for the text background), click “Save,” and your new Gmail theme is good to go!
28. No Grammarly? No Problem! Use Gmail’s Built-in Spell Check
Grammarly has become extremely popular because it checks your spelling and grammar. Even the free version is pretty handy, especially since you can add Grammarly’s extension to your browser (it’s available on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox). There’s even a desktop app, while the pro version has even more features!
If you have no interest in using Grammarly, that doesn’t mean there’s no way for you to check your spelling without using an external tool. Gmail has built-in spell-check. Using this feature is simple, just click on the three-dots menu in any compose/reply window and click on “Check spelling.”
29. Choose Your Inbox Tabs
If you created your Gmail account after 2013, you probably have tabbed inboxes. Tabbed inboxes split your unread emails into categories to help you organize everything and keep your primary inbox clutter-free. Accounts created with tabbed inboxes automatically come with three tabs as a default: Primary, Promotions, and Social.
If you want to make some changes, all you have to do is head into your settings. Click the settings cog wheel, and go to “See all settings” > “Inbox” > “Categories” to change your tabs to your preferred setting.
When you are finished, click “Save changes,” and you’re good to go!
30. Track Important Emails with Color-Coded Stars
By now, you probably know that you can “star” an email to remind yourself that it’s essential. But did you know that you can use many different stars and icons to help you track your important emails?
Gmail has presets that allow you to use just one star (the yellow one enabled by default), four stars, and all stars. There are five different star colors and six symbols you can use.
Change your star settings by going to the “Settings cog wheel” > “See all settings” > “General” and then scroll down to the stars, as seen below:
You can play around with the presets or add and remove as many stars and symbols as you’d like. Put together a combination you like best, then click “Save Changes” when you’re all set.
To use your newly-set stars, go to your inbox and just click on the star. One click will set it to the first color/symbol you have configured. Click several times in succession to cycle through the different stars and symbols you’ve set to find the one you need.
31. Send and Archive
If you want to reply to an email and then archive it right after because you’re done with the thread or the conversation, you can enable send and archive. Enable this feature by going to the “Cog wheel” > “See all settings” > “General” and scroll to “Send and Archive.”
Select “show” and save your changes. The next time you reply to an email, you’ll see the handy send and archive button!
32. Google Hangouts + Google Meet
This tip is convenient for people who need to communicate face-to-face with their email recipients. This saves the hassle of loading up and logging into a different video calling app. Instead, you can simply make video calls from Gmail using Google Chat.
You need to grant access to your camera and microphone to do this. Head over to Google Chat and click on a video call. Here, you will get a notification at the top of the window asking you to give access to your microphone and camera. Simply click on “Allow,” and you should be able to make calls from Google Chat.
You need to enable Google Chat from settings first:
- Navigate to “Settings” > “Chat and Meet”
- Turn on “Google Chat”
If you use Google Meet for work or to keep up with your friends and family, you can also enable Google Meet from this settings page. Once you enable Google Meet, it will appear on your Gmail screen’s side.
33. Right-Click for the Handy Context Menu
If you’d like access to some quick actions, you can right-click on any email in your inbox to bring up the context menu.
This context menu will allow you to perform all the actions available on your inbox’s toolbar. It’s an excellent way to get stuff done without having to constantly move your mouse up and down your screen!
34. Get a Reminder When Someone Doesn’t Respond to Your Email
In most cases, when you send an email, you also need a response. Unfortunately, if you send out too many emails, you might forget about it if you don’t get an answer. This is where Boomerang for Gmail comes in handy.
Here’s how it works: you can set a boomerang on every email you send, so if a recipient doesn’t respond within a certain amount of time, you will receive this email in your inbox. This is a great reminder that allows you to follow up with the recipient. Say goodbye to forgotten emails that never get a response!
35. Make Your Signature Fancy
If you’re tired of typing your signature into every email, you can use Gmail’s signature feature. This feature automatically appends your preset signature to every email you write, so you don’t have to bother with formalities and type up your contact information again.
You can create a simple text-only signature with your sign-off and your name, followed by any contact details or links you may want to include. But you can also add images, such as your logo, headshot, and so on.
To start using signatures:
- Click the “Settings cog” > “See all settings” > “General” tab > “Signature” > “Create new” to make your signature.
- Type a name for your signature — make sure it will quickly tell you what’s in the signature, just in case you start using multiple signatures later on. Click on “Create.”
- In the following screen, you can start configuring your signature. You can also start formatting it to your liking.
- Once you’ve put your signature together, don’t forget to “Save changes!”
36. Use Multiple Email Signatures
If you want multiple email signatures, you can! You can set up an email signature for work and your personal use. The process is almost identical to the one used to create your signature above. However, click “Create new” to add another email signature once you’re on the screen below. You can set that email signature up how you’d like, configure the settings, and then “Save changes!”
37. See Your Unread Emails First
If you’ve found yourself losing track of your unread emails to the point where you’ve missed urgent ones and gotten in trouble for them, you might like this tip! Did you know that you can set your inbox in a certain way to include showing the unread messages in a separate section?
Setting your inbox up with the unread messages first will look like the screenshot below. Clicking on the expand arrow will show all your unread images and everything else (all read).
Using this feature is simple:
- Click on the “cog wheel” to bring up the “Quick settings.”
- Scroll down to “Inbox Type” and select your preferred one. You can set your inbox to show unread emails first, so you never miss an unread message again. There is also no need to click save, as the quick panel auto-saves for you.
You can also set your inbox to show important emails first and starred emails first. It’s also possible for you to use a priority inbox or even multiple inboxes. Experiment to find the setup you prefer the most!
If you like your inbox set up the way it is but still want to see all your unread emails when needed, you can also type “unread” into the search box. Searching “unread” will return all the unread emails in your account!
38. Use the Reading Pane
The reading pane is a convenient feature that allows you to read and reply to email addresses from one screen — no more having to click into an email to read it (and having to click back into the inbox afterward!) The only issue with the reading pane is that it takes up considerable space on your Gmail screen.
Setting up the reading panel is extremely easy. Go to the “Quick settings” panel and scroll to the “Reading pane.” You can select “No split” (no reading pane), reading pane to the right of the inbox, or reading pane below the inbox.
Once your reading pane is set up, you can adjust the size by clicking and dragging the dividing line between your inbox and the pane.
39. Select All Emails
If you’d like to delete all emails of a specific keyword, there’s an easy way to do it. Say you want to delete (or archive) all emails you’ve received containing the word “Paypal.” Type “Paypal” into the search box and wait for the results. Once you see the results, click on the “Select All” checkbox (see below).
Once you’ve selected everything, a new bar will come up, like below:
You can then click on “Select all conversations” that match this search, and it will select everything available in your Gmail account.
If you’d like to deselect, you can do so by clicking “Clear selection.”
40. Track Payments, Flights, Subscriptions, and More
Sometimes, it can be hard to keep track of things you’ve purchased, reservations you’ve made, tickets you’ve bought, and so on. This feature isn’t exclusively for Gmail, as it ties into your Google account, but it’s still handy to ensure you don’t forget anything important!
Click on your profile icon (the circle on the top right corner of the page). Go to “Manage your Google Account” > “Payments and Subscriptions,” and it will show you your subscriptions, purchases, reservations, and more!
You can also search your Gmail account for “category:purchases” to show receipts and purchases you’ve made in the past (although this may miss some emails sometimes.)
Quick Mobile Gmail Tips
Many of the tips included in this article work for the desktop version of Gmail and also the mobile version. However, some additional Gmail tricks and secrets can help you navigate your app better. The tricks below work well for using the Gmail app on your mobile device, although we’ll let you know if something works exclusively on Android or iOS.
41. Switch Your Accounts on Mobile:
Just like you can use multiple accounts on the desktop version of Gmail, you can do the same on the mobile app. Swapping between accounts at will makes it possible to keep all your personal and work accounts in one place without having to log in and out every time.
Switching your accounts is simple. The technique below works on Android and iOS:
- In your Gmail app, tap on your profile picture or avatar within the top search bar.
- Tapping it will bring up the window below. From there, you can tap to switch between accounts. You can also add new accounts or manage the ones you have.
If you have an iOS device, there’s an even cooler way to do it. Note that the method below only works for iOS!
You can view the original tweet and the video at this link.
42. Change How Your Inbox Looks [Conversation List Density]
Sometimes you just like having your inbox a certain way. Whether you want it to show previews of messages and let you know what attachments are included, or if you want to fit as many emails into one screen as possible, there’s a way to get it done. You’ll want to choose your conversation list density on your Gmail app to get your inbox looking how you want it to. Here’s how to do it:
- Open your Gmail app. From the left-hand side of your screen, swipe to the right to bring up the left menu, as you’ll see in the screenshot below. Go to “Settings” > “General settings” > “Conversation list density.”
- Choose the conversation density you prefer. You have three options, as seen below.
As a quick guide:
- Default – shows the sender’s profile photo or avatar, the sender, the email subject line, a preview of the email body, and any attachments.
- Comfortable – shows the sender’s profile photo or avatar, the sender, the email subject line, and a preview of the email body.
- Compact – shows only a check box (to allow you to select multiple emails), the sender, and the email’s subject.
43. Make Use of Confidential Mode
Great news — confidential mode isn’t confined to the desktop version of Gmail! If you’d like to send a confidential message that expires and self-destructs after a certain amount of time, you can use this mode. You can also use it to put a passcode on an email!
To use confidential mode on Gmail’s mobile app, follow the steps below:
- Open Gmail on your mobile device. Select an email to reply to or tap on compose an email. On the resulting screen, tap the three-dots menu on the upper right.
- In the following menu, tap on “Confidential Mode.”
- In the following screen, you can configure your confidential email how you’d like. You can set an email to expire in one day, week, month, three months, or five years (what a jump!). You can also choose to require a passcode.
- Once you’ve selected your preferred settings, simply tap “Save” to begin composing your email. When you finish, tap “Send,” and the email will follow your confidential mode settings (as long as you tap on save!).
44. Customize Your Inbox Swipe Actions [Android Only]
Did you know that you can swipe left or right in your inbox to complete an action on Android? By default, the swipe actions are usually set to archive and delete, but there are six total actions. These swipe actions allow you to get through your emails and clear your inbox quickly when you’re on the go.
Here’s how!
- Open your Gmail app. Swipe inwards from the left-hand side of your screen to bring up the left menu. Tap on “Settings” > “General settings” > “Swipe actions.”
- On the next screen, you’ll see your default settings. You can see an example in the screenshot below:
- If you want to change your swipe actions, tap “CHANGE.” It will bring up the menu below. Choose the action that best meets your needs.
It may take a while for you to get used to your new swipe actions, but once you’ve got them figured out, you should have no issues getting through your emails fast. This tip is a great way to speed up your email routines!
45. Mass-Select Emails
Sometimes, you just need to mass archive or mass delete emails in your inbox. In the desktop version of Gmail, this is really easy to do — just click on the checkbox next to an email. On mobile, it’s a similar process. You can tap on a sender’s profile photo to select that email (you can tap on as many as you need).
Here’s a quick tip: You can also tap and hold on to any email to select it (and select as many as you want this way).
Note that if you use the compact conversation density, you can tap the checkboxes next to emails to select them.
Selecting multiple emails will bring up a top context menu allowing you to archive, delete, or mark emails as read (or unread). Tapping on the three dots menu on the top-right corner will allow you to move emails to a different folder, snooze emails, change email labels, add stars, mark emails as important or unimportant, mute emails, or report them as spam.
Which Was Your Favorite of the Gmail Tips and Tricks?
Now that you have looked at all the Gmail tips and tricks to level up your email experience, let us know which is the most helpful feature for you in the comment section. We hope this list of Gmail best practices in 2024 can help improve your email management process and experience!
If you found this article useful, you might also be interested in leveling up your Google workspace while improving your productivity.
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