Tips To Save You Time: 39 Keyboard Shortcuts For Emails

Team Polymail

With deadlines approaching or new clients to deal with, it can often seem like there aren’t enough hours in a day to deal with everything. The most successful people reach their goals by maximizing efficiency, and getting the most out of the time they have.

Polymail strives to help professionals all over the globe communicate more efficiently than ever before. Thousands of people have had communication within their own team and with clients improved through Polymail. We at Polymail work to provide businesses and individuals alike with better organization and faster networking.

Through Polymail’s new features like the Command Center and a few helpful keyboard shortcuts, you can greatly reduce the time it takes to get your inbox down to zero unread messages. 

Command Center

With one of the newest additions to Polymail’s web app, the Command Center is sure to save time and ease the frustration of internet inconveniences. The Command Center can be activated by pressing Command(⌘) + J on a Mac and Ctrl + J on a Windows PC. 

When opened, the command center grants you access to every action and navigation shortcut. You simply enter the Command/Ctrl + J hotkey and begin typing the name of the task you wish to perform. For example, if you want to quickly move an email to your trash, press Command/Ctrl + J and type “Trash.” 

If you need a reminder of the navigational task you are seeking, you can open up the Command Center and scroll until you find what you are looking for. This works for any action as well.

A common human tendency that hinders productivity is favoring short term convenience over long term convenience. The Command Center does allow you to use many shortcuts without having to memorize them, but it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with them for faster use. 

After taking the time to learn a few keyboard shortcut combinations, many tasks can be performed instantly. 

The time it takes to drag a cursor across your screen can slow you down a great deal! Speedy results come from never having to take your hands off the keyboard. 

Knowing Which Keyboard Shortcuts To Use

Different formats can make it difficult to know which keyboard shortcuts will work for you. Not all hotkeys are universal, so Polymail provides as much information as possible.

You can take a look at the keyboard shortcuts Polymail supports by pressing Command/Ctrl + / , or by clicking the Keyboard Shortcuts option in the Help menu. When getting started with Polymail, this is a great first step to learn about the quickest ways to navigate your new communication hub.

Here are 39 keyboard shortcuts that can speed up your work with Polymail!

Actions Within An Email Thread

These action shortcuts help you organize your emails. Either in your general inbox or in a thread of emails between members of your group, the following hotkeys will quickly move every email to their designated spot so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

  • Read Later: Press Command/Ctrl + D to mark an email to be read later
  • Archive: Press E to archive an email, removing them from your current inbox but preserving them
  • Trash: Delete (⌫) will move an email to the trash folder, which can be emptied later for permanent deletion
  • Move To Inbox: Press Command/Ctrl + I to move an email from another folder into your active inbox
  • Move To List: Press Command/Ctrl + L to move any email address to a list, expanding your network or organizing relevant groups of individuals
  • Unsubscribe: Press Command/Ctrl + U to unsubscribe from receiving emails from a particular address
  • Undo: Command/Ctrl + Z undoes your most recent action
  • Toggle Read Status: Command/Ctrl + Shift(⇧) + U will either mark an email you already read as “unread” (bold font) or an email you haven’t read as “read” (regular font)
  • Toggle Star: Command/Ctrl + Shift + L marks an email with a “star”, signifying importance

Actions For Composing Emails

Writing information-rich yet compelling emails is an art that takes time to master. It also isn’t easy to efficiently compose hundreds of concise yet important emails; that is, it isn’t easy without Polymail’s Command Center and the keyboard shortcuts it supports. 

These combinations save you all the clicking that comes with selecting every relevant setting for crafting an email. You can even easily add clients and co-workers to calendar invites for future meetings or schedule emails to be sent at a later time with a few buttons.

  • New Draft: Press C to begin composing a new email draft
  • Reply: Press R to begin composing a response to an email
  • Reply All: Press A to respond to every email address included in the opened thread
  • Forward: Press F to forward an email to another address
  • Follow Up Reminder: Command/Ctrl + Y will set up a reminder to respond to an address once more
  • CC: Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + C to add recipients for copies of your email
  • BCC:  Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + B to add recipients for copies of your email that will not be seen by the other recipients
  • Send: Command/Ctrl + ↵ will send your current draft
  • Send and Archive: Command/Ctrl + ⌥ + ↵ will both send your current draft and add it to the archive folder
  • Send Later: Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + ↵ to schedule an email to be sent at a particular date and time
  • Add Calendar Invite (while composing): Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + E to invite your recipient(s) to a meeting or event through Polymail’s calendar
  • Copy Polymail Calendar Scheduling Url: Command/Ctrl + E will copy over each calendar invite’s unique URL and add it to the active clipboard
  • Message Templates: Command/Ctrl + ⇧ + O will open email templates
  • Discard: Press Escape (ESC/⎋) or Delete when in Drafts to delete a current draft of an email

Mailbox Navigation

Even with a precise and sensitive mouse, it takes time to navigate through the different folders of your mailbox. These shortcuts enable you to instantly move from one classification of emails to another.

Another helpful feature is the Navigation Center, accessed via the shortcut G. With this, you can simply click or type where you want to go without having to remember the shortcuts below. 

Mac Shortcuts 

  • Search: / (forward slash) 
  • Toggle Right Sidebar: Command ⌘ + \\ 
  • Inbox: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 1
  • Read Later: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 2
  • Starred: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 3
  • Archive: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 4
  • Trash: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 5
  • Sent: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 6
  • Send Later: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 7
  • Follow Up: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 8
  • Drafts: Command ⌘ + ⌥ + 9

Windows Shortcuts

  • Search: / (forward slash) 
  • Toggle Right Sidebar: Ctrl + \\ 
  • Inbox: Ctrl + alt + 1
  • Read Later: Ctrl + alt + 2
  • Starred: Ctrl + alt + 3
  • Archive: Ctrl + alt + 4
  • Trash: Ctrl + alt + 5
  • Sent: Ctrl + alt + 6
  • Send Later: Ctrl + alt + 7
  • Follow Up: Ctrl + alt + 8
  • Drafts: Ctrl + alt + 9

Enabling Gmail Shortcuts

Gmail shortcuts are immensely popular, and many individuals rely on Google Suite. If you are already familiar with Gmail keyboard shortcuts, you won’t have to learn an entirely new system! You can customize shortcut preferences within Polymail.

To switch over to Gmail shortcuts, click on the carrot in the lower left corner of the Polymail app, and then click on Settings in the menu that appears. Choose the Preferences tab on the left side of the page, where you'll see your current shortcut preferences fairly close to the top. You can choose to use either our default shortcuts, or switch to Gmail shortcuts.

By pressing “View Keyboard Shortcuts,” you can look at the entire list of shortcuts that comes with each set of preferences. To compare Gmail keyboard shortcuts to our default, you can also visit Gmail’s help site.

Other Helpful Shortcuts

While working, chances are you will have more tabs open on your computer than just your email. There are a few common keyboard shortcuts that will save you time beyond navigating your inbox.

  • Command/Ctrl + F: This shortcut instantly scans any open document for a keyword that you input, saving you a ton of time looking for references to relevant information.
  • Shift + Arrow keys: Many mouses and keypads are imprecise. To highlight text with greater accuracy, hold shift and press the left and right arrow keys.
  • Command/Ctrl + Shift + V: This pastes plain text without formatting. When inserting information from varying sources into an email, this shortcut keeps everything clean and uniform.
  • Command/Ctrl + Shift + T: So frequently pages get closed by mistake. Instead of going into your recent history or entering in a new search, this shortcut will restore the last tab you closed.
  • Command/Ctrl + D: You can instantly bookmark a tab with this shortcut.

Enabled with these keyboard shortcuts and Polymail’s top-notch organization, you can communicate more effectively and efficiently!

Sources:

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/best-keyboard-shortcuts

https://www.businessinsider.com/gmail-keyboard-shortcuts 

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6594?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en 

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