What Is Gmail's Mute Feature And How To Use It Effectively

Quick Tips

• A mute action can be performed on any message from the entire thread, which would apply the rule to the entire conversation.
• Muted emails will not appear in the inbox unless you are tagged in the email.
• You can use is:muted in the search box to find all muted emails

What Is Gmail’s Mute Feature?

We often become part of email threads or conversations because our name appears on the CC or To list. And, on many occasions, the conversation turns out to be irrelevant, annoying, or unimportant. It just ends up adding to the burden and clutter of our inboxes.

However, Gmail users are blessed with a feature called Mute—you may simply do a Mute on any message and push the entire conversation to the archive. Besides, all future conversations (Reply, Forward, Reply All) on that thread will bypass your inbox and move to the archive automatically. Thus, you will no longer have to view or pay attention to such messages.

Method 1: Mute a Conversation in Gmail Web

Having understood what Mute means and does, we will now see how to mute/unmute conversations in Gmail. Before proceeding, it is also important to know that the entire conversation will reappear in your inbox if your name is explicitly specified in the To/CC field (in any future message).

Step 1: Go to Gmail the inbox and select one or more messages.

Step 2: Click on the More menu and choose the Mute option.

Step 3: If you are already reading a message, click on the More menu and click on Mute.

If you have the keyboard shortcuts enabled for Gmail, you may press the “M” key instead of touching on More -> Mute.

Tip: To quickly check the list of keyboard shortcuts for Gmail, press Shift + ? on your keyboard.

Method 2: Mute a Conversation in the Gmail App

The steps remain the same, but there is a little UI difference you should know about.

Step 1: Open the Gmail App and long-press the email thread you want to mute. It will select the conversation. You can also choose more email threads.

Step 2: Press the three-dot menu at the top right and tap the Mute option in the flyout menu. You can also mute when reading an email.

How to Unmute a Conversation in Gmail Web and App

Step 1: Go to your Gmail Account and click on the search box at the top.

Step 2: Type is:muted on the search box, and press the Enter key. You should see only mute emails in the search results.

Step 3: Select one or all email threads you want to unmute. Click on the three-dot menu and select unmute.

The same steps work on Gmail App on Android and iPhone.

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