How to Forward a Complete Thread of Emails in Gmail

Its easy to forward a conversation with up to 100 emails in Gmail

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by Heinz Tschabitscher
An independent writer who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
Updated October 04, 2018

In Gmail, when Conversation View is activated, all emails with a common subject line are listed together for ease of reading. Gmail lets you forward these entire conversations in a single message easily.

Share Interesting Threads

When you come across an email worth sharing, you forward it. What if you come across an entire thread or conversation of emails worth sharing? Do you forward them one by one?

Not in Gmail, where you can forward an entire conversation in one elegant go. If the thread forms a conversation, as determined by Gmail's criteria, you can forward it in one compact message. Quoted text is removed automatically.

Enabling Conversation View

When you have conversation view enabled, Gmail groups all emails with the same subject line (ignoring prefixes such as Re: and Fwd:) into one conversation. Gmail limits conversations to 100 emails. When a conversation reaches that limit, Gmails starts a new conversation. To enable conversation view in Gmail:

  1. Click the gear icon at the top right side of the Gmail screen.

  2. Click Settings in the menu that appears.

  3. In the General tab, scroll down to the Conversation View section.

  4. Click the radio button next to Conversation view on to activate it.

  5. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen.

If you click Conversation view off, each email appears in your inbox by itself in reverse chronological order.

Forward a Complete Thread or Conversation of Emails in Gmail

To forward an entire conversation in one message with Gmail:

  1. Click the desired conversation in your inbox.

  2. Click the More button in the toolbar above the conversation.

  3. Select Forward all from the menu that appears. The screen displays the contents of the new email at the bottom of the conversation.

  4. Add any comments you have to the email and address the message.

  5. Click Send.

You can also forward multiple messages from one conversation or many as attachments in Gmail.