Email, Messaging, & Video Calls > Email How to Change Gmail's Font Settings Spice up your emails with custom fonts and colors By Heinz Tschabitscher Heinz Tschabitscher Writer University of Vienna A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on May 10, 2021 Reviewed by Michael Barton Heine Jr Reviewed by Michael Barton Heine Jr Michael Heine is a CompTIA-certified writer, editor, and Network Engineer with 25+ years' experience working in the television, defense, ISP, telecommunications, and education industries. lifewire's editorial guidelines Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Email Gmail Yahoo! Mail What to Know Access the formatting options in an email: Select the A icon at the bottom of the message.Change the font, font size, weight, and more: Highlight the text you wish to change and select the corresponding icons.Make your formatting the default: Go to Settings > See all settings > General > Default text style, then make your changes and save them. This article explains how to change the font color in Gmail as well as the font type, background color, and more. Access Font Options in Gmail To set the font, size, and other characteristics of the text while composing a message, select formatting options (the underlined A) at the bottom of the message window. How to Change the Font in Gmail Here's how to use the formatting options toolbar to adjust your text: Highlight the text you want to change and select formatting options. Select the font selector in the formatting options at the bottom of the screen and make a font selection from the list that appears. The font selector is located above Send. The next option is Size, labeled with a small T and a large T. Select it and choose from the sizes available. The next three options indicate bold, italic, and underlined type. Change Font Color and Background Color in Gmail You can also assign colors to the text of your email or the background from the formatting bar. Highlight the text to which you want to change and select formatting options. Select the small A to the right of the Underline button in the formatting bar to open two color palettes labeled Background color and Text color. Select the color swatch for the background color of the text. Select the color swatch for the text color. Any new text you add after the colored text appears in the same color scheme until you make a change. Lifewire / Maddy Price Alignment and Other Text Options The formatting bar contains a few more options, mostly related to text alignment. To reveal all the options, select the down arrow on the right end of the toolbar. Align text: Next to the color icon is the text-alignment button. Text within a Gmail message can be aligned to the left, center, or right using the Align button.Ordered and unordered lists: Make lists using the next two buttons from the left in the formatting bar. Highlight a section of text and click one of these buttons to apply either bullets or numbers.Indent text: Some email programs let you tab to create an indent, but that isn't supported in Gmail. Instead, use the Indent More and Indent Less buttons to move text in and out of the left side of the page. You can also use it with a list to make sublists.Quote: Similar to the indent option is the Quote button that makes the selected text stand out from the rest with an indentation and vertical bar.Strikethrough: Add a horizontal line across the text.Remove Formatting: Remove the custom formatting options you made and convert everything to plain text. Select the text and click this button to remove the custom color, indentations, font changes, and anything else you added. Format Using Keyboard Shortcuts Most of these editing tools can be accessed through Gmail keyboard shortcuts. Hover the mouse over a button in the formatting bar to see its shortcut. For example, to quickly make text bold, highlight the text and press Ctrl+B on a PC or Command+B on a Mac. Press Ctrl+Shift+7 on a PC or Command+Shift+7 on a Mac to convert text to a numbered list. Save Your Changes as the Default If you like the new font changes you made and want Gmail to use this formatting as the default for every message, edit the text style from the General tab of your Gmail settings. In the upper-right corner of Gmail, select the Settings gear. Select See all settings. Go to the General tab, then scroll to the Default text style section. Make the changes in this section to match the style you want for all future emails. Select Save Changes at the bottom of the page. You can also change the default font in Gmail if you want all of your messages to have a consistent style. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit