Official Gmail Blog
News, tips and tricks from Google's Gmail team and friends.
Tip: Read your mail without touching your mouse
October 2, 2008
Posted by Arielle Reinstein, Gmail Product Marketing Manager
First, if you don't have
Gmail keyboard shortcuts
enabled, turn them on in Settings. You'll be glad you did. If you spend a lot of time in Gmail, you'll start shaving milliseconds of every action, which adds up. Get through a hundred or so messages every day and you'll end up with extra minutes each week to read your favorite blogs in Reader -- using
Reader's keyboard shortcuts
of course.
Here's how I read my mail:
1. Log in.
If I'm on my own computer I don't even have to do this, since I have the "Remember me on this computer" option checked on the Gmail homepage.
2. Get rid of stuff I obviously don't need to read.
I scan the senders and subjects of unread messages in my inbox, navigate through the messages using
k
to move the cursor (little black triangle) upwards and
j
to move it back down.
As I'm moving around, I select all of the messages I haven't already filtered but don't need to read using
x
.
And archive them all with
y
(
e
works for this too). Now I just have the messages I should read.
3. Get through the mail I do need to read.
I find a message that looks important or interesting, and open it using the
enter
key. If I need to reply, I hit
r
. Reply all? That's
a
. Once my response is ready to go,
tab
+
enter
sends it on its way. Back to my inbox with
g
+
i
. More navigating around with
j
and
k
, selecting with
enter
. Archiving (
y
) and replying (
r
). Starring some stuff for later (
s
). The occasional forward (
f
). Sending with
tab
+
enter
.
It may seem like a lot to remember, but for me, these eleven shortcuts have been invaluable and aside from
j
and
k
, which I just had to practice, pretty intuitive (
g
+
i
? that's for "
g
oto
i
nbox"). If you ever need a quick
refresher
, hit
?
anytime to see the shortcut reference guide. And if you don't like any of them, you can edit the defaults and define your own by enabling Custom keyboard shortcuts in Labs.
Labels
buzz
calendar
Gmail Blog
Google Apps Blog
Google Calendar
googlenew
Inbox
Inbox by Gmail
labs
mobile
Offline
reader
tasks
tip
Archive
2016
Sep
Aug
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Aug
Jul
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Feed
Google
on
Follow @gmail
Follow
Give us feedback in our
Product Forum
.
Get posts via email
Email:
Powered by
Google Groups
Useful Links
About Gmail
Gmail for Mobile
Gmail for Work
Follow