How to get less email

Or: Muting - the opposite of snoozing

Good news: You are able to opt out of email messages that do not interest you. All without creating complicated filters.

A feature called "mute" keeps replies out of your inbox. Learn how muting works, where emails go and how to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

You cannot opt out of all email. But some is under your control.

The basics

The "mute" feature is designed to silence replies when the email has run its course for you, but still goes on. Since other people will not let move you to BCC and it would be rude to reply with "UNSUBSCRIBE", you can click the "mute" button yourself. They won't notice.

A muted email is archived, meaning its Inbox label will be removed - you can still search for it and it will still appear in your folders/labels if you applied any. It will also appear under "all mail". It gets a special label called Muted. You can remove that label yourself, by unmuting the email.

Now comes the payoff: As other people continue replying, this message will not return to your inbox! It will stay wherever you put it. Even if you reply yourself. Until you unmute the conversation.

There is one exception: If someone replies to you alone, this will also unmute the email. That usually makes sense - typically, those are questions ("What do you think of that?").

How to mute

Right-click any email and select mute.
The mute command is also present in the three-dot menu, on top of emails and email lists.
The shortcut for muting is m.
The Gmail mobile apps also support muting.

How to unmute

Do the opposite of the ways above.

Muting Q&A

Finding muted emails

This will make you feel like a hacker. When you search for is:muted, only muted conversations will come up. You can combine that with is:unread to find muted conversations that went on without you.

That is a great way to check, maybe as part of your Friday routine, if anything important went on. Probably not, you would have heard.

What if I don't like conversation view?

Muting works regardless of your conversation view setting. Conversation view makes it easy to see which messages belong together (and will be muted), though - like a muting preview.

Why would I need muting if I am the king/queen of Gmail filters?

Good question, your highness. Gmail filters are more powerful than muting, but it's easier to set up muting. Think of muting as an instant filter?

The full flow! I hope you are prepared for more flow charts from now on, because LucidChart is just that cool.

Try yourself and mute 1-2 emails of your inbox that you know you are not interested in. That can be automated notifications or newsletters that someone is replying to. Then wait what happens when you get a reply - as you become more comfortable, I hope you can incorporate muting into your working toolkit to separate what is important. Thank you for reading!

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#gmailPublished 2020-04-16 by Holger Matthies.Modified 2021-09-31 by Holger Matthies.Republished 2021-09-14 by Holger Matthies.

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