How to Mark Email Read in Gmail

This article explains how to mark Gmail messages as read from the desktop website. We look at a few methods, including one that can do it in bulk to a whole list of emails.

Mark Email Read in Gmail

Here's the typical technique, which is useful for marking one or more emails as read in just a few seconds:

1. Find the email(s) you're interested in marking read. For example, select Inbox or a custom label, or perform a search.

2. Select the check box next to each message, or select a range of emails to grab several at once.

3. Select the Mark as read icon on the toolbar (the open envelope). Immediately, every email you selected is now marked as read.

How to Use Gmail's 'Mark as Read' Keyboard Shortcut

If you want an even faster method, the Gmail keyboard shortcut to mark emails read is Shift+i. But it only works if you've turned on keyboard shortcuts in Gmail's settings. Follow these steps to enable this hotkey:

1. Select the Settings/gear button.

2. Choose See all settings.

3. From the General tab, scroll down and choose Keyboard shortcuts on, then keep scrolling to the very bottom of the page and select Save changes.

4. Locate the email you want to mark read, and either select its check box (pictured below) or open the email to see its contents.

5. Hold Shift and then press i to "read" the email(s).

Mark All Mail Read in a Label or View in Gmail

Gmail lets you organize your emails into labels, which are like folders. If you have lots of messages in a label, especially junk messages, you can quickly zap away the unread count with a single button. Here's how it works:

1. Open the label that you want to work in, and make sure that no messages are checked.

2. Go to the toolbar and select the three-dot menu.

3. Select Mark all as read. All messages in the label are now marked as read.