First, keyboard shortcuts must be enabled in your Settings. Check this first.

Using shortcuts may be awkward at first but once you learn a few you will be addicted. Give it a try, you may be surprised.

To see all the keyboard shortcuts type “?”. Hit any key to close the keyboard shortcuts guide.

Gmail shortcuts to live by:

Go to Inbox. g then i.

Buried deep in a conversation, and need to re-center your chi: g then i.

Go to Drafts. g then d.

I use Drafts as a place to store notes so I’m always in there. I have one email draft called “Scratch” that I take notes in and as a bonus I can add notes to this draft from my iPhone as well.

Go to Tasks. g then k.

Tasks is another handy place to keep things.

Go to Labels. g then l.

Labels are powerful. Think of them like folders but better. My favorite way to use labels is by setting up filters that automatically archives emails, thus cleaning up my inbox, and applies labels to them. For example, I’m always getting notifications from Facebook so these are archived out of my inbox and have the label “Facebook” applied.

Select conversation. x.

Great if you want to delete a conversation or label it or archive it.

Try this: Select a conversation with “x” then hit “l” to pull up labels. Start typing a label name, then hit enter to apply label. Then “x” again to deselect label or * then n to deselect all conversations if multiple conversations are selected.

Newer/Older conversation. k/j

Good email navigation keystrokes.

Move to trash. #

Very handy.

Open conversation. Enter.

This is how you get into an email and read it.

Scenarios

Let’s put these keystrokes in action. Here are a couple scenarios I find myself in and keystrokes to make things snappy.

One. Open up your inbox, you go down the list of emails and delete a few of them.

g then i. Takes you to your inbox.
j to move down the list of emails.
x to select the current email. continue until all emails are selected you want to delete.
# to delete all the selected emails.

Bravo! Well done.

Two. Open your inbox, select some emails, and apply a label.

g then i. Takes you to your inbox.
j to move down the list of emails.
x to select the current email. continue until all emails are selected you want to apply a label.
l to pull up Label menu.
Start typing the name of the label to be applied. Once the correct label appears, hit enter.
* then n. Deselects all emails.

See how easy that was. Congratulations you’re a Gmail Master.