How to mute an email thread so it stops showing up in your Gmail inbox

December 8, 2022

By Kim Komando

So you want to stop seeing someone’s emails in your inbox but don’t want to block them. Maybe a coworker is hounding you, and you’d rather get to their emails later so you can focus on more pressing issues. In that case, you should know how to mute people in Gmail.

With this trick, you can mute email threads and conversations. When you mute a conversation, you send future messages to the “All Mail” label. This way, they’re out of your inbox, even if someone responds to the muted conversation later. Tap or click for more ways to control your inbox.

Since Gmail automatically notifies you whenever a new email pops up in your inbox, this can reduce annoying distractions throughout the day. The mute function helps you clean up your inbox without deleting specific emails. Here’s how to use this helpful tool.

Why mute people in Gmail?

First, you should know that muting in Gmail is not the same as blocking. When you block a conversation, you won’t see any future emails related to that original message. When you mute an email, all associated messages go to your “All Mail” section instead of your inbox.

This trick is helpful for small business owners and freelancers alike. Maybe you write articles for an outlet that takes too long to send payments. If you don’t want to cut them off entirely, mute their emails.

This way, you can get responses from your best clients straight to your inbox. You can put all your focus on the email senders who matter most to your business. But if you ever want to go back to the company you previously muted, you can see if they’ve sent you any interesting messages.

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Maybe you think you don’t need to mute people in Gmail since you archive specific messages. However, these two functions have very different purposes. When you archive a message, responses go straight to your inbox.

Bottom line: Muting is most effective for people who want to limit email notifications.

How to mute a Gmail conversation

The steps should be the same whether you have Gmail on iOS or Android. Open up the app on your phone and press and hold down on an email you want to mute.

A banner will pop up at the top. Select the three-dot menu at the top right. Here’s what it will look like on an iPhone:

Then, select Mute. Just like that, the email will disappear from your inbox.

You’ll get a notification at the bottom saying your message was muted.

Just know that you can’t mute specific email addresses. As nice as it would be to stop hearing from specific people who spam you with messages, you can’t mute a particular email address. You’ll have to settle for muting their threads and conversations instead.

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