How to supercharge Gmail with keyboard shortcuts

Increase your email efficiency and spend less time in your inbox

Gmail has many keyboard shortcuts built directly into it — a lot more than most people know. Even the Android app supports quite a few. Unless you stumble upon them accidentally, it's difficult to know what they are since the email client doesn't mention them during regular use. It will take some time to achieve the muscle memory status, but once you get a few of these keyboard shortcuts down, you'll start to save yourself a bunch of time and hopefully get through your emails far more easily.

Enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail

Keyboard shortcuts aren't turned on by default in the desktop version of Gmail, so the first thing you need to do is enable them in the settings. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Open the Gmail client from the desktop, then go to Settings cog > See all settings.

2. Scroll down the settings menu until you locate the Keyboard shortcuts section, then click the Keyboard Shortcuts on option (.

3. Scroll down to the bottom and hit Save to finalize the changes.

The most useful keyboard shortcuts (desktop)

The desktop version of Gmail, in particular, has too many shortcuts to remember, but learning just a few of them can be a great help. We've compiled a list of the standout shortcuts that should prove to be the most useful, so let's dive in and learn more about them.

Compose (c)

Although it is not difficult to click the button to compose a new message, pressing the c key will do the same without a mouse.

Search (/)

Rather than manually entering the search box, you could easily scour through your entire inbox by pressing the / key.

Select (x)

Instead of clicking on the checkbox next to an email in the inbox, you can select the currently highlighted message by pressing the x key. Use your arrow keys to move around and select multiple emails.

Open (o)

Press the o key to open the currently selected message.

Go back to threadlist (u)

You can then use u to go back to the email list you were just on.

Star (s)

When you want to favorite an email, you can press the s key to mark your message with a star. Press it again to change the star type.

Archive (e)

Archiving an email will save it for later while keeping hiding it from your inbox — hit e on the current message to so.

Label (l)

Adding a label to the currently selected email can be done by pressing l, which will bring up the label menu options.

Delete (#)

With any conversation selected, you can press # to instantly delete it from your inbox and send it to the trash folder.

Reply (r)

When you have a message open that you want to reply to quickly, pressing the r key will allow you to respond directly to that thread.

Reply all (a)

If you have multiple parties to reply to at once, you can reply to all recipients by pressing the a key.

Mark as spam (!)

Suppose you want to mark your currently selected message as spam, pressing the ! key will get rid of it immediately.

Forward (f)

Much like replying to the currently selected message, if you want to forward it to another recipient, you can do that by pressing f.

Navigate inside threads (n, p)

In a message thread with multiple emails, you can cycle through each one with n to move down and p to move up.

Mark as read/unread (Shift + u, Shift + i)

To make a selected message show as new again, you can press Shift + u to mark it unread. Alternatively, pressing Shift + i will mark it as read.

Open inbox (g + i)

Should you ever want to open your primary box instantly at any time, pressing g + i will do that for you.

Open the keyboard shortcut list (?)

These are just our favorite keyboards, but there are many more. To see them all at any time, press the ? key and a pop-up window with all the available commands will appear (as below).

Alternatively, the complete list of Gmail keyboard shortcuts for the desktop client can be found here.

Android keyboard shortcuts

If you hook up a keyboard to your Android device, you'll have access to a much smaller selection of keyboard shortcuts. Though not as in-depth as the desktop version, these shortcuts could be helpful if you do not have a mouse on hand when using a keyboard. It could easily save you from leaning in multiple times to tap the display when you need to do certain things on-screen.

Compose (Ctrl + n)

Composing an email from your Android device with a keyboard requires you to press Ctrl + n.

Archive (Ctrl + d)

Archiving a conversation to save it for later is just as simple as pressing Ctrl + d.

Send (Ctrl + Enter)

Rather than leaning forward to tap the send button on your screen, you can press Ctrl + Enter to fire off that email right away.

Refresh (Ctrl + u)

This will allow you to sit back and constantly refresh your inbox without having to swipe down, which can be done by pressing Ctrl + u.

Select all (Ctrl + a)

Should you ever need to select all the text in a conversation at once — you can press Ctrl + a to do that.

Open the menu (Ctrl + m)

If you need to quickly access any account-related settings, pressing Ctrl + m will instantly bring up the side menu.

Reply all (Ctrl + r)

Whenever you need to reply to all recipients of a conversation, pressing Ctrl + r will take you straight there.

Mark as read (Ctrl + i)

You can actually sit back with your keyboard and use the arrow keys to navigate your email, then press Ctrl + i to mark the new messages as read.

The full list of Gmail keyboard shortcuts for the Android app can be found here.

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Gmail is an incredibly powerful tool, but that also means it can be pretty cumbersome at times. Using some of these shortcuts to speed up the experience can help you master Google's email client and get back a little slice of time every day.

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