Gmail has over 1 million active users globally but only a few know how to use Gmail properly.
Learn these effective skills and tricks to improve your email writing productivity and efficiency.
In this article we will share some of the top-secret hacks that you shouldn’t miss while writing an important email.
Get rid of promotional Emails
- Open Gmail.
- Open the promotional email that you want to remove.
- Click on the 3 vertical dots in the top-right corner of the email.
- Select “Block [sender’s name]” from the drop-down menu.
- Click on “Block” in the pop-up window.
- To delete all promotional emails, go to the “Promotions” tab, select all emails & delete.
- To prevent future emails, unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email.
How to Undo the email you just sent
- Open the “Sent” folder.
- Find the email that you want to recall and open it.
- Click on the 3 vertical dots in the top-right corner of the email.
- Select “Undo” from the drop-down menu.
- Edit your email in draft folder before sending it again.
- Ensure “undo send” is enabled in your settings before using this feature:
- Setting > General > Enable Undo send (with a delay of 10/20/30 seconds).
How to Send a confidential email
- Open Gmail
- Click “Compose”
- Enter recipient, subject, and content.
- Next to the “Send” button, click on the lock icon.
- Set an expiration date and passcode for the recipient to open it.
- Click on the “Send” button to send the email.
Use Keyboard Shortcuts
| Action | shortcut |
| Previous message in an open conversation | P |
| Next message in an open conversation | n |
| Focus main window | Shift+Esc |
| Focus latest chat or compose | Esc |
| Advance to the next chat or compose | Ctrl+ |
| Advance to previous chat or compose | Ctrl+ |
| Send | /Ctrl + Enter |
| Add cc Recipients | /Ctrl+Shift+c |
| Add bcc Recipients | /Ctrl+Shift+ b |
| Access custom from | /Ctrl+Shift+f |
| Insert a link | /Ctrl + k |
| Go to next misspelled word (Mac only) | +: |
| Open spelling suggestions | g/Ctrl + m |
Send your email later
Want to make it look like you’re at your desk at 0800?
Now you can do exactly that:
- Click the down arrow next to ‘Send’
- Choose ‘Schedule Send’
- Pick the date + time you want.
Prep your replies
Sick of typing out the same replies again + again?
You don’t have to:
- Enable first in Settings > Advanced > Enable templates
- Draft your email Click the 3 dots
- Save as template
Next time, use that template to save yourself time.
Snooze an Email
Have an email that you don’t need to deal with now?
Set a reminder for later:
- Click on the clock icon on the right .
- Choose how long you want to snooze the email.
It’ll appear back in your inbox on that date.
Ignore those annoying conversations
In an email thread where everyone keeps using ‘reply all’?
Mute it to stop it distracting you:
- Open the email
- Click the 3 dots at the top
- Click mute
Future replies will be archived (but you can still find them if needed).
