October 27, 2010

Go to the Next Gmail Message After Archiving or Deleting

What happens when you archive or delete a conversation from your inbox in Gmail? Google goes back to the inbox and you need to select the next conversation.

If you enable "Auto-advance" in Gmail Labs, you can change this behavior. The default option is to go to the older conversation, but you can also ask Gmail to send you to the newer conversation if you usually read the oldest messages first.

Gmail automatically advances to the next conversation after archiving, deleting, flagging as spam, moving or muting a conversation.


Gmail's blog reminds us that there are two useful shortcuts for archiving and going to the next/previous conversation: ] and [, but they're difficult to remember and not many people use keyboard shortcuts.

{ Thanks, Sterling. }

17 comments:

  1. Good on you. But i wish gmail had folders like hotmail, even deleting from sent email would not delete from inbox .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, it will. If you delete a Gmail conversation, it's no longer displayed when you go to your inbox, when you go to a label, when you perform a search and not even when you click on "All mail". You'll only find it in the trash.

    ReplyDelete
  3. “] and [, but they're difficult to remember” – They're also US-centric. On many international Keyboards, {[]} are awkward to reach, e.g. on a German keyboard they're Right Alt and 7/8/9/0.
    Generally, I love the keyboard shortcuts in Mail/Reader/NewTwitter, and use them extensively.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Finally...how long did it take them to get this feature up and running?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I hate this "feature". Once I deleted an email in Hotmail and the next message was spam with the title "looking for a f*ck buddy?" I deleted it, but then my wife used the computer and the hysteria began.

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Maik: Enable the Custom keyboard shortcuts lab and remap the shortcuts to your liking.

    ReplyDelete
  7. any Gmail experts out there?

    I can't figure out how to activate "arrow navigation" in gmail. From the main Gmail window I still need to use the mouse and click each time to select a message. I can't just press the up or down arrow key.

    I have keyboard shortcuts activated.

    Any clue?
    Thanks

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Anonymous: Gmail doesn't support the Up/Down arrow keys to select/move up and down on messages, you have you use J, for down, and/or K, for up, to move up and down the message list and to select a message, click on X.

    To see a complete list of keyboard shortcuts in Gmail, click on Shift plus ?.

    Keyboard shortcuts - Gmail Help

    ReplyDelete
  9. PS You can also click on O to open a message w/out first clicking on X.

    Note: Capital letter used for emphasis.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great feature, like it very much.

    ReplyDelete
  11. @jasonvaritekfan Thank you. Strange they did not select the up / down keys instead.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I found this article to be very informative. Thanks for sharing. Good feature

    ReplyDelete
  13. good! I've been using gmail, and there are always more to learn!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Most of the time I open unread mails and when I delete that mail I simply want to go to the next unread mail: I don't really care if it is the next one up or down but the next unread mail in my inbox. ... Please :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Perfect answer, exactly what I needed to know without extraneous information!!!! *****!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Perfect. 6 years after this was wrote ive found it. :D

    ReplyDelete

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