12 powerful Gmail tips every user should know.

Isaac Adeyemi

3 years ago

It’s time to run your inbox–instead of it running you.

Reader’s Persona

Occupation ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑ Gmail users

Problem ———– Overwhelmed with daily mails

Desire ————– Looking for a way to manage their inbox.

Do you get tons of emails every day?

How do you manage to deal with all those emails?

Do you read them all at once? Or

Do you save important ones and reply later?

In this article, I will be sharing 12 Gmail tips that are very useful if you want to manage your inbox effectively.

Gmail is not just another email service. It’s one of the most widely used applications in the world with over 4,147 billion emails and over 1.8 billion active users According to Statista.

However, with its huge grip on the mailing market users still face some little difficulties running their mail to taste and one of the biggest problems faced by users is running their inboxes. Users are usually overwhelmed with email messages in their inboxes as a result of the subscriptions (newsletter) made at one time and having to deal with so many unread emails every day and reading important – or not-so-important emails is a daunting task when you are really busy – Even if you pride yourself on your attention to detail, you probably procrastinate – many of us do, at cleaning up our inboxes. But, now this does not mean that you should let your email inbox take control over you, you should learn to run your Gmail inbox like a pro focusing on the most important emails. Meanwhile running your inbox like a pro takes time and effort that is why I’ve put together some Gmail tips to help make you more productive and organized and get you off to a flying start.

If you have a Gmail account, it’s time to make the most of it. How?

Undo Send:

Don’t tell me it hasn’t happened to you? did you send a message to an unintended person? Or there is a huge error is in the mail you sent to your boss or someone not that close to you? Or you clicked “reply all” on a message including your boss when you meant to only reply to your friend. Well, there is a solution! Save yourself! With Undo Send, Gmail allows you to recall a message sent in error for up to 30 seconds after you click send.
Tie emails to Tasks:

Look, we’re all busy. When your inbox is filling up faster than you can handle, it’s easy to forget to reply, miss an assignment, or just plain feel overwhelmed. Connecting emails to tasks can help. Get reminders; add details, subtasks, and more.
Schedule Send:

With schedule send, you can draft an email at a time that works for you. Then schedule it to be sent at a time that fits the recipients’ (your employees or customers) day. In the world of remote work, this is critical. It’s a win-win. Work on your time, send on theirs.
Confidential Mode:

At times you send an email you’d prefer not to live on forever something that automatically deletes itself after a scheduled time frame. I.e. WhatsApp status, WhatsApp disappearing message, Instagram live status, and Facebook status feature. Better yet, you’d also like it if the recipient wasn’t able to save, copy, or forward the mail to someone else. With confidential mode, you can do just that. Set expiration time or dates; require passcodes to access, & more.
Canned Responses:

I don’t know about you, but I get tired of saying the same thing over and over again. I like to let people know I’ve read their message, but I hate typing “Thanks”, “sounds good” or “looking forward to it” every day of my life. If you are a person that hates repeating the same sentence over and over again then this is for you.
Go to Settings->advanced->templates->enable:
Mute Conversations:

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s being bombarded with emails that have nothing to do with me. Worse yet, getting pinged with responses from everyone included in the thread. There’s an easy fix. Mute conversations & get on with your life. Here’s how:
Get rid of those annoying tabs:

Primary, Social, Promotions, etc. you might not need them. If you just want a simple inbox where you can access all messages regardless of their categories, boy, I got a tip for you. Turn off the categories and clean up your inbox in a few easy clicks:
Skip the inbox:

Filters are one of the most underutilized features in Gmail. What seems like simple sorting on the surface, can help you unlock productivity in ways you never imagined. • Skip your inbox • Apply labels • Forward • Auto-reply with templates & more.
Shortcuts:

Learning keyboard shortcuts is like opening the door to a world of speed and ease you didn’t know existed. Just like other computer software and programs you can effortlessly move between messages, archive, send & more. Wait… Not so fast. You need to activate them first. Once they’re on, a list of the shortcut directive will automatically pop up as will be seen in the GIF below.

Read Also: 9 Powerful Google Sheet Formulas & Hacks Every User Must-know
Preview emails:

Converting from Outlook & miss your “preview pane?” Gmail lets you preview as well. •Head to settings > all-settings •Locate Inbox > enable reading pane Now you can read mail right next to your inbox – Read & write faster while adding more context.
See more (or less) emails at a time:

The number of messages shown in your inbox can be a bit too much at times. You can also configure your Gmail inbox interface, you can choose how many emails you want to see in a row. Limit the max page size and you control how many you see.
Auto-Advance:

I’m an “inbox-zero” type of person. I like to keep it clean, organized, and as minimal as possible. Enabling auto-advance helps to speed up the process of sorting your mail each day. Once you mute, delete, or archive a message, the text is automatically shown.
See how to do that below.