How to Mute or Unmute a Conversation in Gmail

Muting a message lets you ignore future replies

By

Heinz Tschabitscher

Updated on November 16, 2021

Reviewed by

Jon Fisher

Email

What to Know

To mute a conversation, open a message and select Mute from within the More menu.
To unmute a conversation, go to the All Mail folder, open a muted message, and go to More > Unmute.
To mute or unmute multiple messages, select each message and then follow the muting or unmuting steps.

Gmail makes it extremely easy to ignore, or "mute," a conversation to immediately archive an entire thread so that you're not notified of those messages anymore. This puts the current conversation into the All Mail folder, along with any future replies exchanged within that thread. The emails automatically skip your Inbox folder and are visible only in All Mail or in a search for the message.

These instructions are for desktop users using any desktop browser.

How to Mute Gmail Conversations

To mute a conversation, open the message you want to ignore, and then choose Mute under the More (...) menu.

Another option is to use a keyboard shortcut. Just open the message and press the m key. Mute multiple messages at once by selecting all of them from a list, and then using the More > Mute option.

How to Unmute Gmail Conversations

Muted messages are sent to All Mail. To unmute them, you must find them first by:

Looking in All Mail.
Searching for the message using criteria such as the sender's email address, text within the message, the subject, etc.
Entering is:muted in the search bar.

Then, to unmute a conversation:

Open the message you want to unmute.
Select More > Unmute to stop muting that thread.
Alternatively, click the X next to Muted.

To unmute multiple emails at once, select all of them from the list of muted emails, and then select More > Unmute.

To place a recently unmuted email into the Inbox or some other folder, manually drag and drop it, or use the Move to option (look for the folder icon).

Archive vs. Mute

An archived message goes to the All Mail folder to help keep your Inbox clean, but any replies sent back to you through that conversation will return to the Inbox.

A muted message goes to the All Mail folder, too, but replies remain ignored and will not show up in the Inbox. You must manually find and keep watch over muted emails if you want to stay up to date on replies.

This is why the Mute feature is so helpful: It enables you to ignore messages without deleting the emails or blocking the senders.

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