what to know
- Open Gmail in your browser, select the box next to the email you want to mark, and select Mark as Read in the toolbar.
- Keyboard shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts on Settings > See all settings > General >. Use Shift + i to mark an email as read.
- Mark all messages in a label as read: Open the label and select More (three dots) > Mark all messages as read .
This article explains how to mark Gmail messages to be read from the desktop website. We looked at several methods, including one that batch-processes your entire email list.
This is a typical technique that can be used to mark one or more emails as read in a matter of seconds:
Find emails that interest you and mark them as read. For example, select your inbox or custom labels, or perform a search.
Check the box next to each email, or select a range of emails to get multiple emails at once.
Select the Mark as Read icon (open envelope) on the toolbar. Every email you select is now immediately marked as read.
If you want a faster way, the Gmail keyboard shortcut for marking an email as read is Shift + i . But it only works if you turn on keyboard shortcuts in Gmail settings. Please follow the steps below to enable this hotkey:
Select the Settings/Gear button.
Select View all settings .
In the General tab, scroll down and select Keyboard Shortcuts , then continue scrolling to the very bottom of the page and select Save Changes .
Find the email you want to mark as read and select its checkbox (as shown in the image below) or open the email to view its contents.
Hold down the Shift key and press i to "read" the email.
Gmail allows you to organize your emails into labels, just like folders. If there are a lot of messages in a label, especially spam, you can quickly clear the unread count using a button. Here's how it works:
Open the label you want to use and make sure no messages are selected.
Go to the toolbar and select the three-dot menu.
Select Mark All as Read . All messages in the label are now marked as read.
