How to enable Gmail keyboard shortcuts

Web mail is awesome, you don’t need extra software to get to your emails and you can access it from almost anywhere. If you have painful muscle condition or you are tired of clicking and clicking just to get to one email, sometimes it can be frustrated. Keyboard shortcuts will free you up from the mouse and it will make you faster, more productive and efficient.

Gmail Shortcuts

Web mail is awesome, you don’t need extra software to get to your emails and you can access it from almost anywhere.

If you have painful muscle condition or you are tired of clicking and clicking just to get to one email, sometimes it can be frustrated. Keyboard shortcuts will free you up from the mouse and it will make you faster, more productive and efficient.

Today we are going to learn how to enable Gmail shortcuts:

1-  Login to your Gmail account and click on Settings.

2-  Under the General tab go to the option Keyboard shortcuts (from here you can turn them on or off), select Keyboard shortcuts on and click Save Changes.

Enable Gmail Shortcuts

That is it, really simple, right?

Before I finish this article, I would like to leave a short list of Gmail Keyboard shortcuts that I find common to use:

C- Allows you to compose a new message. Shift + C allows you to compose a message in a new window.

/- Puts your cursor in the search box.

N- Moves to a new message.

P- Move to a previous message

!- Marks a message as spam and removes it from your conversation list.

R- Replies to an email that you are already reading.

A- Replies to all message recipients.

F- Forward a message.

Ctrl + S- Saves the current text as a draft when composing a message. Hold the Ctrl key while pressing s and make sure your cursor is in one of the text fields — either the composition pane, or any of the To, CC, BCC, or Subject fields — when using this shortcut.

#- Deletes a message.

Shift + I- Marks message as read.

Shift + U- Marks message as unread.

?- Shows keyboard shortcuts help.

Now, there is a link right under Keyboard shortcuts option (refer to the image above) that says Learn more, this link will take you to a Google page where you can learn all the shortcuts that are available to you.

You can also customize your keyboard shortcuts. To do this, go to Settings and you will notice a new tab named Keyboard Shortcuts, go there and change any of the actions with a key that you like and click Save Changes. And don’t worry if you don’t feel comfortable with your changes, you can always go back and click Restore Defaults.

Modify shortcuts in Gmail

 

Note: This should work across most web browsers.

Remember to leave us your comments in the section below, Thanks!

About the author

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].