13 Tips and Tricks to Master Your Gmail Inbox

 

13 Tips and Tricks to Master Your Gmail Inbox

• Gmail’s inbox can look very plain. But it contains a lot of features.

• You can customize how your Gmail inbox looks and works using the Gmail application or any web browser.

• If your inbox is full of mail you don’t want, Gmail lets you filter messages and mass-delete messages.

When you first open your Gmail inbox, it looks pretty simple. Only emails, folders and search bar are visible. But as one of Google’s most important products — perhaps the most important after Google Search — it’s Gmail. It has dozens of settings and features to customize.

Here are some great tips to manage your Gmail inbox. After knowing what Gmail looks like, how to change it, how it sorts your emails, which messages it saves or deletes, how it contains more details, here we will know in detail.

Change your Gmail ‘inbox type’

In Gmail, your ‘inbox type’ determines the order in which your emails are shown. By default, it lists your emails in the order you received them. But you can change it according to your liking. So it lists your unread emails first. List your important emails first or use your filters and labels as you see fit.

You can change your inbox type on the Gmail website or in the Gmail app. On the website, click the gear icon at the top right. Then find the Inbox Type section. In the app, tap the three stacked lines in the top left corner. Then select Settings to find these options.

This is a great way to prioritize the emails you need to see most often. Once you select a new inbox type, you may need to restart the app before it takes effect.

Adjust your inbox density

Even if there are more emails in your email inbox, more content will fit on the screen. But if your inbox is too densely packed, it can be difficult to read your messages.

Gmail offers three density levels:

Default: This gives enough space for each message and shows any attachments.

Comfortable: It gives the same amount of space without showing attachments.

Compact: It consumes as little space as possible.

You can freely switch between them by clicking the gear icon at the top right on the website or the Settings menu on the mobile app.

Customize your Gmail background

By default, the Gmail website has a plain white or black background. But you can change this background as you want. Google offers a few dozen images that you can choose from, or you can even upload your own.

To find Background options, click again on the gear icon in the upper right corner. Under the Theme heading in the Sidebar, you’ll find eight preset backgrounds to choose from. Click one of these to make your background or click View all to see more options.

Unfortunately, you cannot change the mobile app’s background except by turning dark mode On or Off.

Use labels to sort your emails

Gmail allows you to organize your messages with “Labels“. That means they are a type of folder. You can see your labels in the left sidebar and you can apply as many labels as you like to any email.

You can create new labels on the Gmail website and in the iPhone app. Unfortunately the Android app doesn’t let you do them.

But all three versions of Gmail allow you to add labels by opening any email and clicking or tapping the Labels option.

You can find all your emails with a particular label by selecting that label in the left sidebar.

Open Gmail’s reading pane

The reading pane on the Gmail website allows you to read your emails without leaving the inbox. (not the app) It may appear next to or below the message you are reading.

To activate it, click the gear icon in the top right corner and scroll down to the Reading Pane.

Change the page size to see more emails at once

Changing Gmail’s page size changes how many messages your inbox displays at once. For example, if you receive tens of emails a day, enlarging the page will help you see them all.

If you’re using a slow computer, setting it to appear smaller is a good idea. You can find this option on the full Settings page of the Gmail website. Mobile apps don’t use pages – they scroll endlessly.

Mark every email as read

There are few things more stressful than slowly watching Gmail’s unread email counter tick up. But luckily, you don’t need to open every email to reset this counter. Just mark the emails as read and tick up.

To “read” all of your emails at once, go to the Gmail website on a computer and select label: inbox unread which will show all your unread emails. Then you can use the checkmark box to quickly select and mark as read.

Acts as you open each unread email and resets the unread email counter to zero.

Mass-delete emails you don’t want

Even if you read all your emails, they still take up space in your inbox. So if emails are taking up storage space or you don’t like emails piling up, you should know how to delete emails en masse.

You do this the same way you mark your emails as read. Go to the Gmail website and find the emails you want to delete. Type label: inbox: unread. Then select All and delete.

If you accidentally delete an email you meant to keep, don’t panic. Click Trash in the left sidebar. Find the email you deleted and drag it to the Inbox tab.

Empty Gmail’s Trash folder

Once you delete an email, it is moved to your Trash folder for 30 days. After those 30 days, the messages will be permanently deleted.

But messages in Trash still occupy storage space. So if you have deleted a bunch of emails but still need more space, you should go to Trash and delete them first.

To delete all your Trash messages, open the Trash folder. And click or tap on Empty Trash now at the top of the page. You can do this on the website or in the app.

You can delete specific messages individually by opening them and selecting the Delete forever option.

Archive your emails instead of deleting them

If you want to clear out your inbox, but don’t want to permanently delete certain emails, consider moving them to an archive or records collector. Archiving an email removes it from your inbox. But it moves it separately to All Mail folder. You can watch it anytime. Unlike Trash, these emails don’t delete themselves. You can keep it for as many years as you want.

To archive an email, open it and then click or tap the Archive icon at the top of the page. It looks like a box with a downward arrow inside.

Once you archive an email, you can find it in the All Mail folder. Select it in the left sidebar.

Stop important emails from going to the spam folder

Google’s spam filters are pretty smart. But occasionally they can be so strict that they mark emails you want to receive as spam.

If Gmail has automatically sorted an important email into the Spam folder, go to your Spam folder and open the message, then click or tap Report, Not Spam or Not Spam at the top of the page.

If you don’t see this option in the mobile app, tap the three dots in the top right corner and select Not Spam from there.

Returning a message to your inbox should teach Google not to filter such messages in the future.

Block someone from emailing you

If you’re getting emails from someone you don’t want to hear from, you can block them. This will automatically delete any messages you receive from that email address.

Open an email you received from the person you want to block, click the three dots next to the reply button, then select Block.

Alternatively, if you see the Unsubscribe option, click it. This will remove you from the mailing list from which the email came.

If you want to unblock someone later, use the Gmail website to click the gear icon in the top right corner, then click See all settings. On the Settings page that opens, click Filters and blocked addresses, then click Unblock next to the person you want to hear from again.

Use keyboard shortcuts to navigate Gmail

As with most Google apps, you can navigate the Gmail website without a mouse. All you need is a keyboard and shortcuts.

First, you need to turn on shortcuts. Open the Gmail website and click the gear icon in the upper right corner, then click See all settings. On the Settings page, scroll down to Keyboard Shortcuts and make sure Keyboard Shortcuts is selected. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.

Once you turn them on, you can navigate through most of Gmail’s basic features without a mouse. For example, if you want to create a new message, tap the C or D keys. To select the search bar, tap the / key. And to navigate between messages in your inbox, use the J and K keys.

For a complete list of Gmail keyboard shortcuts, press Shift + ? keys.