Gmail is one of the most popular email services for personal use. Many organizations using Google Workspaces also offer Gmail as the email client. By default, Google offers many interesting features in Gmail that work as advertised. But with a few minor tweaks, you could really help level up your entire Gmail experience.

Have you ever sent an email, only to realize it was typo-ridden, and you wished you hadn’t sent it? How about keyboard shortcuts on Gmail? Did you know you could templatize responses for routine emails? If you have never bothered to tinker around in the Settings menu of Gmail, here are seven easy ways to become a Gmail power user.

7 Keyboard shortcuts

Do everything with the keyboard

One of the major signs of being a power user of any application is knowing keyboard shortcuts, regardless of whether you're on a Windows PC, Mac, or Chromebook. With Gmail, there are a boatload of them. Google makes it easy for you to recall which shortcut action does what. Simply hit Shift + ? and you are presented with shortcuts for navigation, formatting, thread list selection, Google Chat navigation, and much more.

Want to create your own shortcuts? Then click on the gear icon in the top right-hand side of the Gmail browser. Go to Gear icon > See all settings > Advanced > Custom keyboard shortcuts and select Enable. Once enabled, you will see a Keyboard Settings tab, which shows all the actions along with the keys corresponding to it. You can customize this to your liking and click on Save Changes. Just ensure the command you customize doesn’t clash with other shortcut commands.

6 Undo send

How to get more time to unsend an email?

We have all, at some point, sent a mail in a rush, only to realize that we missed out on some aspects that were to be discussed in the response, the mail was filled with typos, or worse, the mail was sent to the wrong recipient. Gmail offers a default Undo send command of 5 seconds, but that can be increased to 30 seconds.

Click on the Gear icon > See all settings > General > Undo Send. From the drop-down menu beside it, select between 5, 10, 20, and 30 seconds of buffer time, then hit Save Changes. Now, whenever you send an email, you will see an Undo option in the floating black bar that shows up after you send an email.

5 Templates

Get rid of composing repetitive emails

There are times when some emails require the same or similar responses. In such a situation, you don’t have to retype the entire message every time. You can, instead, create template responses. Click on the Gear icon > See all settings > Advanced > Templates and select Enable and Save settings.

Now, whenever you write a redundant text in a New message (ensure the email signature is deleted), that text can be saved as a template by clicking More options > Templates > Save draft as template > Save as new template. You can give the template a name. Next time, whenever you want to respond with the same text, simply select the necessary template instead of typing out the message again.

4 Adjusting the reading pane

Optimize the display real estate

The default way in which Gmail shows you your messages when you open them doesn’t make the best use of the display real estate. This is especially true if you have larger displays. This can be tweaked by enabling the reading pane.

Click on the Gear icon > Select all settings > Inbox > Enable reading pane. Select either the Right of inbox or Below inbox option to get preview panes for your emails that don’t require you to lose sight of other emails.

3 Switching between many signatures

Relief from manually changing signature details

In a professional setup, it’s pertinent to have an email signature. But at times, you may not want to share certain details from your signature, such as your phone number. It’s tedious to manually add or remove things from a signature. Instead, you can create multiple signatures and simply toggle between them depending on the context or the recipient.

Click on the Gear icon > Select all settings > General > Signature. Click on the Create new box to add a new signature. Older signatures will show up in the box on the left. You can select Signature defaults from the drop-downs below: For new emails use and On reply/forward use. Then click on Save Changes. Now, when you are in the compose box, clicking on the pen symbol will bring up all the signatures you have saved. You can simply select the one that you want to use.

2 Multiple star formats

Smarter way to categorize important emails

Whether it’s your personal or professional account, there are some emails that you want to star to reach quickly in the Starred section of Gmail. By default, Gmail lets you use only the yellow star. If you have a lot of Starred emails, then it could also make it tedious to quickly locate the right email you were searching for.

Click on the Gear icon > See all settings > General > Stars. Here you can choose between 1 star, 4 stars, and all stars, depending on your preference, followed by Save Changes. Now you can toggle between the Stars by clicking successively on the star icon. This way, you can have great visual cues for different types of priority emails. Hovering over the mouse over the star will tell you its name. When you are in the Starred section and only want to view the emails starred with blue-star, simply type this command in Gmail's search box: has:blue-star. You could even assign certain star icons for certain types of emails.

1 Filtering emails with an example

Supercharge your Inbox

This is one of the most powerful features of Gmail and if used mindfully, it can really help you organize your Inbox, get rid of unwanted emails, and make folders for specific types of emails. While Gmail does have tabs such as Promotion, Updates, and Social, sometimes some emails slip through those and show up in the Primary tab. You want the Primary tab to only have the absolutely important emails.

Click on the Show search options, located on the right-hand side in the Search bar on Gmail. Now, depending on the objective you want to achieve, you can add the details in the respective fields to create filters.

Let’s say I want to add a newsletter (from The Browser) that shows up in my Primary tab, to a folder where I have all the newsletters I am subscribed to. In that case, I will add the email ID of The Browser newsletter and click Create filter. On the next screen, I am presented with more options. I selected Skip the Inbox, Apply the label (the name of the folder Newsletter), and Also apply filter to matching conversations. This will ensure that every email from The Browser will land up in my Newsletter folder and won’t show up in my Inbox.

You can do many things, such as automatically archiving marketing emails, clearing your Gmail inbox if it’s getting full, automatically deleting emails from certain email IDs, or the Spam folder, and much more.

Taking charge of your Gmail account

The seven hacks discussed above will definitely level up your Gmail experience to some extent. Familiarizing yourself with the Settings menu of Gmail and Show search options will surely turn you into a Gmail power user. Using these tips also ends up saving a lot of time that would otherwise be spent on redundant tasks. Don't forget to also check out how you can manage your passwords with Google.