How to Use Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts That Save You Time

We all need some extra hours in the day to spend alone with our inbox, don’t we? The amount of time we put into reading and answering emails or organizing our inbox is just too overwhelming to be mentioned here. Luckily, we do have the perfect email provider that makes our communication easier and efficient, but most importantly - fast! We praise Gmail for making our life better by providing efficient and smart features for an excellent work and communication experience.

Spending several minutes on learning how to use Gmail keyboard shortcuts now, will save you a lot of time later. Moreover, it will save you a significant amount of time on a daily basis. Assuming you’ll save 2 seconds on every Gmail action by using a keyboard shortcut, you can cut at least 15 (to 30) minutes spent on Gmail daily. For many people, this extra time is crucial and could make a significant difference in overall work performance. Read our Gmail guide for more useful Gmail features that can help you enhance your productivity.

Gmail offers a huge number of keyboard shortcuts, however, only some of them are essential for an improved everyday Gmail experience. Most of them work by a touch of one button only, but first, you need to** turn on Gmail keyboard shortcuts**.

1. Click on the Settings icon in the top right corner in your Gmail
2. Click the _Settings _option in the pop-up menu that will appear on the screen
3. In the first _“General” _tab you will find the _Keyboard Shortcuts _section
4. Select Keyboard Shortcuts on
5. Go to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes

Once you enable the Gmail keyboard shortcuts, you can start using your keyboard to perform actions in Gmail.

Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts - Delete Shortcut in Gmail

Among all Gmail keyboard shortcuts - delete action shortcut is the most useful, according to users. In order to delete an email without switching to your mouse and reaching the “bin” icon, you can use** # **on your keyboard. The famous “hashtag” is the shortcut to delete action.

The “Select All” Shortcut in Gmail

Along with the useful “delete” shortcut goes the very appreciated “select all” feature’s shortcut. If you want to select a bulk of emails and delete them, then use the following shortcut: * + a. This shortcut is helpful for whenever you want to perform to more than one email - read/unread, move to a different folder, reply to all, etc.

• To select a continuous series of messages, you need to check the box of the specific email and hold _“Shift” _until you select the last email. All between will be selected.
• To select a random series of messages - check the box of the specific email and hold “Command” while you are choosing the other designated messages.
• To select all unread messages - Hold Shift + 8 + u.

• Once you select multiple messages you can use the shortcuts for the following actions:

  • Archive selected messages: **e **
  • Mark selected messages as important: =

The Useful Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

1. Select conversation ** x**
2. Compose c
3. Compose in a new tab d
4. Reply ** r**
5. Reply in a new window Shift + r
6. Forward ** f**
7. Forward in a new window Shift + f
8. Undo last action ** z**
9. Mark as read ** Shift + i**
10. Mark as unread ** Shift + u**
11. Archive e
12. Mute conversation m
13. Report as spam ** !**
14. Go to Inbox g + i
15. Go to Starred conversations g + s
16. Go to Sent messages g + t
17. Go to Drafts g + d
18. Go to All mail ** g + a**
19. Go to label g + l
20. Go to tasks g + k
21. Switch between send name, subject line, and body of the email - TAB

Formatting Your Email With Shortcuts

To format your text when writing an email by using your keyboard only, you can use the keyboard shortcuts for formatting. Once you switch to shortcuts, you’ll notice these are a very cool and time-efficient tool. Here they are:

1. **Bold Text **- select the text you want to bold and press **command + B. **By performing the same action again you can undo the formatting.
2. _Italic Text _- select the text you want to bold and press **command + I. **To undo formatting - perform the same action again.
3. Underline text - select the text you want to bold and press **command + U. **Repeat the action if you wish to undo the formatting.
4. Undo the last action -** command + Z. **This shortcut helps you undo a single or series of previous actions (ex: if you accidentally delete a sentence or paragraph you can recover it).

Gmail Custom Keyboard Shortcuts - Create a Personal Gmail Shortcut

If you seek maximum efficiency in your work, Gmail has your back. As always, smart options and features are available for your best interest. Moreover, Gmail offers a customized experience for every user with several helpful features like the custom labels in Gmail. Moreover, the possibility to create Gmail custom keyboard shortcuts for your specific needs is the most appreciated option by those who want to keep their fingers on the keyboard.

In order to start creating your customized shortcuts, you need to make sure that Gmail keyboard shortcuts are enabled (as explained previously in this text) in your Gmail. Back in the Settings page, you can see several tabs at the top of the page. Here is the procedure step-by-step:

1. Open the tab named “Advanced”
2. Find the “Custom Keyboard shortcuts” section
3. Click on “Enable”

Once you enable the custom Keyword shortcuts option, Gmail will create a new tab in the settings page that is named “Keyboard shortcuts”. By clicking on that tab, you will get an overview of the current keyboard shortcuts mapping in Gmail. Next to every shortcut you can see a blank space in which you can add a customized keyboard key for the specific action you’ll choose. After you finish adding your customized shortcuts, don’t forget to click “save changes” at the bottom of the page.

A Note to All Gmail Users

Keyboard shortcuts for Gmail work differently on Pc and Mac computers. To improve your Gmail experience on Mac, check out the Boxy Suite app for more and powerful Gmail features.

Keyboard shortcuts are intended for desktop use only. If you want to optimize the Gmail usage on your phone, you can learn more about the useful features on the Gmail app.