15 Useful Gmail Shortcuts You Might've Forgotten About

Gmail has so many excellent features that it can be difficult to keep track of them all — and every once in a while, you stumble across some nifty ones that you had completely forgotten about, such as the keyboard shortcuts we’re about to explore.

Note: To be able to use the following shortcuts, you’ll need to enable them by navigating to Settings > General > Keyboard shortcuts and enabling the Keyboard shortcuts on setting:

Navigating Gmail

• gi: Takes you to the inbox.
• gs: Takes you to the Starred folder.
• ga: Takes you to All Mail.
• gc: Takes you to your Contacts list.
• /: Activates the search box by placing the cursor in it.

Switching Between Messages

• j: Moves the cursor to the next oldest conversation (or opens it if you’re already in Conversation View).
• k: Moves the cursor to the next most recent conversation.
• p: Moves the cursor to the next oldest message in Conversation View.
• n: Moves the cursor to the next most recent message in Conversation View.

Dealing with Messages

• x: Selects/deselects highlighted conversation (marked by a blue cursor).
• s: Stars/unstars conversation.
• #: Deletes conversation.
• e: Archives conversation.
• !: Marks message as spam.
• Enter: Opens highlighted conversation (or opens highlighted message in Conversation View).

Wait, that’s not all. Gmail has many other shortcuts that you’re not using. Hit ? to bring up the full list.

Highlight of my day so far: learning the keyboard shortcut for inserting an em dash into a Gmail draft. I ? em dashes.

— Lisa Thomas (@lisamth) November 19, 2015

Now let’s hear about the Gmail shortcuts that you consider indispensable!

Image Credit: e-mail sending and retrieval key by ssakarya via Shutterstock