June 6, 2022

Complete guide to Gmail shortcuts

A guide to all of Gmail's Keyboard Shortcuts

I use Gmail almost every day of my life but I constantly had the feeling that I was not being as productive as I could be with the tool. I wanted to understand what efficiencies I could squeeze out of it and how this would work alongside Sortd for Gmail.

Apart from keyboard shortcuts, tools like Sortd for Gmail can help you boost your Gmail productivity by an order of magnitude.

For a long time I have known that keyboard shortcuts could deliver a great productivity boost but I had only tried a few of the most common ones.

I have read that it takes time to form a real habit and soI decided that I was going to invest 21 days using the Seinfeld Method to see what type of productivity boost I could achieve.  In short the Seinfeld method focuses on you developing a daily habit and it encourages you not to break the chain.

"After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain."

And as it turns out, there are a lot of shortcuts that I didn't even know existed and this habit forming exercise made me feel that I 10x my Gmail productivity!

I compiled a list of the top 50 most useful Gmail keyboard shortcuts (and custom keyboard shortcuts) to boost your productivity.

What are Gmail Shortcuts?

A keyboard shortcut is a key press or a series of keys presses that performs typically achieve with the mouse.

There are a number of common shortcuts like Copy and Paste you’re probably comfortable with using, like Ctrl+C (Windows), ⌘+C (Mac) and Ctrl+V (Windows), ⌘+V (Mac).

Benefits to using these shortcuts are :

  • The ability to move around the Gmail inbox quicker.
  • Quickly formatting your emails without disrupting your flow.
  • Eliminate switching between the mouse cursor and the keyword all the time

How to Turn On Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

Gmail shortcuts are not on by default.  To turn on Gmail keyboard shortcuts follow the steps below:

  • On a computer, go to Gmail.
  • In the top right of Gmail, click Settings and then click on "See all settings".
  • Click Settings.
  • Scroll down to the "Keyboard shortcuts" section.
  • Select Keyboard shortcuts on.
  • At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.

Gmail Keyword Shortcuts

1.  Open Gmail's keyboard shortcut pop-up

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + ?

This shortcut opens a pop-up within Gmail keyboard shortcut help with a short list of common short cuts.

2. Search for Mail

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: /

This shortcut activates the search bar at the top of Gmail and allows you to immediately type without clicking. Type your search phrase and press enter to run the search.

If you want to search for something particular, try using these Google search operators.

Common search operators are: to:david cc:david subject:dinner

Search multiple terms: from:amy OR from:david

Date searches: after:2022/04/16 before:2022/04/18

3. Archive an Email

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: E

All the selected emails will be moved into the archive and the Inbox label will be removed.  Archiving will note delete the email but will rather keep the email in the “All Mail” label or folder.

4. Compose a new message

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: C

This  shortcut creates a new email message, in the same way as pressing the Compose button. It’s a fast way to quickly create new emails.

5. Delete an Email

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: #

This keyboard shortcut moved the selected emails to the trash label or folder. In Gmail trash is automatically cleared our after 30 days.

6. Select All Emails in the current view

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: *+A

This shortcut selects all the emails threads on your current view. This is useful if you want to archive or move a numebr of emails at one time.

7. Select a continuous series of messages from the message list view

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift

To select multiple messages from the current email message list view, click the checkbox on the left of the emails while holding down the shift key.  This will select a sequential list of messages between where you clicked first and last.

8. Select a random series of messages (Command)

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Command

To select multiple messages from the current email message list view, click the checkbox on the left of the emails while holding down the command key.  This will select only the messages that you have selected.

9. Select all unread messages (Shift + 8 + u)

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + 8 + u

This shortcut selects all the unread messages from the current email message list view.

10. Reply to All

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: A

This shortcut to compose a reply to all the recipients included in the previous email message. It will not include people who are Cc’d or Bcc’d in the previous email.

11. Reply

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: R

In a similar vein to the previous shortcut, this one opens a response email. However, it will only directly reply to the person who sent you the original message (not other Cc’d or Bcc’d recipients).

12. Send Email

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Enter (Windows) or ⌘+Enter (Mac)

This shortcut will trigger the email to be sent or replied to. Note: if you need to undo an email send, you can use  Ctrl+Zwithin a 10 seconds to stop the email from sending (you’ve sill need “Undo Send” activated in Gmail settings).

13. Reply in a New Window

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift+A

This keyboard shortcut will open a reply in a new window.  This is useful for preparing longer emails.

14. Make Text Italics

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+I (Windows) or ⌘+I (Mac)

This shortcut takes any text that you’ve selected and makes it italics. This shortcut is great for formatting text to emphasize particular words or to quote text.

15. Bold Text

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+B (Windows) or ⌘+B (Mac)

This shortcut takes the text that you have selected and makes it bold. This shortcut is great for formatting text to emphasize particular words and phrases to make subheadings in your emails.

16. Underline Text

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+U (Windows) or ⌘+U (Mac)

This  shortcut underlines the selected text. This shortcut is great for formatting text to highlighting particular words.

17. Strikethrough Text

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Alt+Shift+5 (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+X (Mac)

This shortcut will draws a line through selected text.

18. Open the sidebar with Google Tasks

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: G+K

This shortcut will open the “My Tasks” tab from Google Tasks on the right-hand side of your screen. Special note: If you want a tool far more powerful than Google Tasks, use Sortd for Gmail.

19. Create a task from an email in Google Tasks

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift+T

This shortcut will create a task from the email you are viewing. It is useful when wanting to track an email to completion like an email that you have delegated but want to come back to. If you want power powerful email and task management features, we recommend using Sortd for Gmail.

20. Inserting a Link

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+K (Windows) or ⌘+K (Mac)

This shortcut will pop up a control where you can specify an URL for the selected text. You can included text to display for the URL.

21. Add Cc Recipients to an Email

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+C (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+C (Mac)

This shortcut will add the Cc field into the compose or reply window. This is where you can specify the people’s emails addresses to be CC'd.

22. Add Bcc Recipients  to an Email

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+B (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+B (Mac)

This shortcut will add the Bcc field into the compose or reply window. This is where you can specify the people’s emails addresses to be Bcc'd.

23. Add a Bulleted List into an Email

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+8 (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+8 (Mac)

This shortcut will add a numbered list to the selected lines of text. It looks like this:

  • Item 1
  • Item 2
  • Item 3

24. Add Numbered List

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+7 (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+7 (Mac)

This shortcut will add a numbered list to any vertical lines of text that you’ve selected. It looks like this:

  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3

25. Increase the Text Size

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift++ (Windows) or ⌘+Shift++ (Mac)

This shortcut will increase the size of any text that you have selected. Gmail offeres: small, normal, large, and huge text sizes.

26. Decrease the Text Size

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+- (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+- (Mac)

Like increase Text Size, this shortcut decreases the size of the text you have selected.

27. Add Call-out or Quote

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+9 (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+9 (Mac)

This Gmail shortcut will take any text that you’ve highlighted and turn it into a call out or quote. Gmail formats the quoted text differently from regular text, to emphasize your text. See below:

28. Open Spelling Suggestions

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+M (Windows) or ⌘+M (Mac)

Gmail will show you spelling corrections for your highlighted text when using this shortcut.

29. Remove Text Formatting

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+\ (Windows) or ⌘+\ (Mac)

This shortcut will remove the text formatting from the text you have selected, resulting in plain text. For example, “this is italic" would become “this is italic”

30. Reduce the Text Indentation

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+[ (Windows) or ⌘+[ (Mac)

This shortcut decreases the text indentation, moving the text to the left across the screen.

31. Increase the Text Indentation

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+] (Windows) or ⌘+] (Mac)

This shortcut increases the indentation to the left of your text. Your selected text will "tab" to the right of the screen. This shortcut is handy when you need to make your emails more readable.

32. Align Text to the Center of the Screen

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+E (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+E (Mac)

This Gmail shortcut adjust the alignment of any selected text to the middle of the screen, moving the highlighted text into the middle from the standard left alignment.

33. Align Text to the Right of the Screen

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+R (Mac)

This shortcut will adjust the alignment of any selected text to the right.

34. Align Text to the Left of the Screen

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+l (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+l (Mac)

This shortcut changes the alignment of any highlighted text back to the left-hand side of the screen. As this is the default alignment, this shortcut only works on text aligned to the center or right-hand side of the screen.

35. Mark an Email as Important

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: + or =

This keyboard shortcut will mark the selected emails as Important and will simultaneously train Gmail's important algorithm. Gmail will show a notification to say that the “Conversation is marked as important” and the email itself will get a yellow chevron indicator. Note: As of writing this article this is not longer possible with Gmail's new user interface.

36. Mark Email as Unimportant

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: -

This shortcut will remove the Important label from an email you marked as important when using this shortcut.  Note: As of writing this article this is not longer possible with Gmail's new user interface.

37. Mark an Email as Read

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift+I

This shortcut will mark any selected email or emails as read. This will remove the bolding to indicate that an email is unread. Naturally this will only works for emails that are unread.

38. Mark an Email as Unread

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift+U

This shortcut will mark any read emails that you have selected as as unread. It will bold the email in your mailbox to highlight it, so that you can come back to it later.

39. Expand Email Conversations / Threads

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: ;

This shortcut expands any collapsed email threads within an email conversation.

40. Collapse Email Conversations / Threads

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: :

This shortcut collapses emails thread that are expanded. Gmail will still show the most recent thread in an email conversion expanded. You can manually expanded collapsed emails by clicking on them.

41. Forward an Email

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: F

This shortcut opens the  forwarding screen for you. From there you can add the recipient’s email address and then send the email using the Send keyboard shortcut above.

42. Forward Email In A New Window

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift+F

This shortcut will pop an email out into a new compose window and allow you to forward it as a new email.

43. Report Spam

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: !

This shortcut will mark an emails that you have selected as spam. This will automatically place the email into the spam spam folder.

44. Open the Sent Messages Folder or label

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: G+T

This shortcut will help you to quickly move around the Gmail interface more quickly.  It will open your Sent Messages folder.

45. Open the Drafts Folder or label

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: G+D

This shortcut will help you to quickly move around the Gmail interface more quickly.  It will move you to the Drafts folder or label. This is where all incomplete or draft messages are kept until they are ready to be sent.

46. Open the Starred Conversation List

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: G+S

This shortcut will move you to the Starred folder or label. It will work in your “Sent” folder and your inbox. If you want to undo this action, simply press “Undo” or Ctrl+Z/⌘+Z.

47. Change Font to Next Font

Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+5 (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+5 (Mac)

This shortcut adjust the font of the selected text to the next font in Gmail’s list of finds. Gmail includes 11 default HTML fonts.

48. Change Font to the Previous Font

Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+6 (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+6 (Mac)

This shortcut adjust the font of the selected text to the previous font in Gmail’s list of finds. Gmail includes 11 default HTML fonts.

49. Mute the Email Conversation

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: M

This shortcut is useful if you receives a lot of emails on any particular email thread. Google will mute any new email on a particular email thread or email conversations. Just a note, you will continue to receive email and replies, but you won’t receive email notifications through your inbox.

50. Shorts for Gmail Spaces, Google Chat and Google meet:

Gmail Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + / after first clicking on the Spaces, Chat or Meet icon in Gmail.

Google Spaces shortcuts below:

Google Chat shortcuts below:

Google Meet shortcuts below:

The Most Helpful Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts when composing an Email

1. Send Email: Ctrl+Enter ⌘+Enter (Mac)

2. Insert link: Command + k

3. Insert bullet points: Command + Shift + 8

4. Insert numbered list: Command + Shift + 7

5. Bold / Italic / Underline: Command + b / Command + I / Command + u)

6. Remove formatting: Command + Control + \

7. Switch between send name, subject line, and body of email: Tab

8. Adding a Cc or Bcc recipient: Ctrl+Shift+B (Windows) or ⌘+Shift+B (Mac)


The Most Helpful Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts when using the Inbox View

1. Reply to: r

2. Reply to all: a

3. Mark the selected message as unread (Shift + u)

4. Mark the selected  message as important (=)

5. Forward email: f

6. Archive the selected message/s: e

7. Jump to the next email: k

8. Jump to the previous email: j

9. Jump to next message in an email thread: n

10. Jump to previous message in an email thread: p

11. Mute the never-ending-and-not-important thread: m

12. Jump back to inbox view: u

Frequency asked questions -

Which one is better: mouse or keyboard?

This can be a difficult question to answer, as the best choice depends on your needs and preferences and your keyboard dexterity. Some people feel that a mouse is more ergonomic, while others find that a keyboard is more efficient.

Efficiency. You may work quicker, more effectively, and with greater accuracy by using keyboard shortcuts rather than the mouse, which saves you time as well as improving your productivity. Keyboard shortcuts are also valuable for people with mobility or vision issues.

Ergonomics. Repetitive strain injury (RSI) can be avoided by using keyboard shortcuts, which may be brought on by repeated use of the mouse over long periods with your wrist resting on the mousepad and bringing your fingers to left- and right-click.

Precision. Using your keyboard to work on paragraph text, for example, is more precise than using your mouse. To move your cursor around the word, line, paragraph, or page more easily, use a combination of the Ctrl + Arrow keys and Home and End.

Summary

Keyboard shortcuts can be an incredibly powerful boost your day to day productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.  Once you have gotten used to this new way of working, you may never want to switch back!

Over the course of the list 21 days I got into the habit of using Gmail's shortcuts and I must say that Gmail felt and acted like a completely different product. There are a lot of shortcuts that I didn't even know existed, which was refreshing as Gmail is a far more extensive product than it seems on the surface.

All in all, this experience was a positive one and it is not often that I can say that a tool was able to boost my productivity by 10x. But it did! I feel more productive and I am flying through my inbox with ease.

Written by
Rodney Kuhn