Seven hidden Gmail tricks everyone should know

Gmail has a clean, simple interface – but there’s more under the hood than meets the eye.

There are tons of hidden hacks and tricks for optimizing your Gmail experience – including unsending a strongly-worded email.

Over 300 billion emails were sent per day in 2020 – and loads of them were written, sent and received on Google’s Gmail platform.

Gmail accounts for 1.8 billion of the 5.6 billion active email accounts – and every account does far more than merely send and receive.

Unsend an email

Surely, everyone has sent a message through cyberspace they immediately wished they could take back – on Gmail, it’s possible.

After sending an email, a small box will appear in the lower right asking if you would like to unsend – click directly on the word “undo” after you’ve send as clicking anywhere else will cause the option to disappear.

Under default settings, the undo icon will appear onscreen for five seconds – this can be altered in settings.

Advanced search

Advanced search is a useful tool for tracking down a piece of information buried in your inbox.

The advanced search tool can by accessed by clicking the icon with three slider bars in the search box at the top of your inbox.

You can search by sender, receiver, date, words – you can even narrow the search for an email by looking for the words it doesn’t have.

Color coding important messages

Starring messages puts your most crucial emails in a separate folder.

But these messages can be further organized with color-coded stars.

Activate more color options by going to settings, scroll down on the general tab, and drag more color options to the “in use” section.

Smart compose

Google’s writing suggestions are a blessing for users who write with traditional office lingo.

By just typing the beginning of a phrase, Gmail will suggest the remainder of it, saving you keystrokes and time.

Smart compose can be toggled on and off under settings – Google is even accepting feedback for how to improve the quality of Smart Compose’s suggested phrases.

Customized inbox

Gmail’s default layout is rather basic to appeal to the masses.

But user’s can prioritize their emails by clicking the quick settings gear icon, and selecting a custom inbox based on what they want to see first: unread, starred or important.

You can apply the multiple inboxes feature, which can siphon all bot-mail into a different inbox.

Confidential mode

An email can be made to disappear, like a Snapchat.

You can set an expiration date on a private email by clicking the lock icon near the send button.

Your employer may revoke confidential mode from your network, barring employees from sending disappearing messages.