Approaching Gmail’s 15th birthday in 2019, Google has added a wealth of productivity and machine learning tools to its email service. (Also, Inbox may be trying to make up for the disappearance of the email app, but that’s another day’s argument.) The additions included a way for Gmail to write email subject lines for you and schedule an email to send later. . time.
Navigating some of Gmail’s features can be a little confusing. In this tutorial, we’ll focus on Smart Reply and Smart Typing, Gmail’s autocomplete tools designed to save time.
Letting a machine help you write emails and subject lines for you might sound a little unusual, but if you’re at least open to experimenting with it yourself, here are ways to automate your Gmail replies.
Enabling Smart Reply and Smart Typing
To allow Gmail to generate reply and email text, you must first enable it from your Settings menu. If you’re a regular Gmail user (Google Workspace users may need authorization from their administrator), here’s what you need to do:
on the table
- Click the gear icon in the top right and click on “See all settings”.
- In the “General” tab, navigate to the separate Smart Reply and Smart Typing options and select “On” for either or both to enable automatic suggestions.
- You can also choose “Smart Typing personalization” to let Gmail’s machine learning personalize suggestions based on the way you write your emails. For example, if you greet your coworkers with “Hello everyone” instead of “Hello, team”, the thing you use most often will automatically pop up.
- Finally, “Smart features and personalization” allows Google to use your content in Gmail, Chat, and Meet to enhance personalization features, while “Smart features and personalization in other Google products” lets it learn, you guessed it, from other things. Google products. Each of these can be controlled on or off.
In the Android or iOS app
- Tap the hamburger icon at the top left to open the side drawer. Proceed to Settings.
- Select the Gmail account you want to address.
- Tap the Smart Reply and/or Smart Typing checkbox to turn on the mode. You can also enable (or disable) “Smart features and personalization” or “Smart features and personalization to other Google products”.
When Settings opens, your Gmail is set to suggest replies and help autocomplete sentences based on your writing style.
what does it look like
Basically, you start typing and Gmail starts suggesting words that might fit the sentence you’re typing.
Note that it won’t always open for every email you write. Because Gmail needs context, you’ll find that Smart Typing comes into play when replying to an email or starting emails with general phrases like “Nice to meet you” or “I hope you’re all right”. If Gmail has a suggestion, a light group of text will appear next to what you type.
In the desktop version of Gmail, you can press Tab to accept the suggestion. If a suggested word or phrase appears in the mobile app, swipe right to add it to the email.
Smart Typing can also suggest email subjects. Leave the subject line blank and start typing your email. When you return to fill in the subject line, Gmail will present a suggestion that you can accept by pressing the Tab key in the desktop app or swiping right on mobile devices.
Smart Reply for canned responses
Smart Reply runs slightly faster than Smart Compose. Instead of suggesting words or short phrases for you, Gmail will offer three responses that may be appropriate to the email you receive. For example, if you receive an email reminding you of an appointment, Smart Reply might suggest replies such as “Confirmed”, “Thanks” or “I can’t come”.
Tapping these replies will not send the email immediately. You can add more text to the suggested answer before choosing to send it.
If you’re on an email conversation with several people, keep in mind that responding with a Smart Reply will CC everyone in that email. You’ll have to manually remove the people you don’t want in this reply, so it’s best to choose Smart Reply for emails you only want to send to everyone in the thread.
Should you actually use it?
Letting a machine write your email may seem impersonal, but it’s not designed to write all the email for you. Smart Typing and Smart Reply work best when you use them to add filler sentences or quickly respond to yes or no emails. Also, Gmail has gotten much better at suggesting replies that will make sense 90 percent of the time. (In my experience, responses tend to gravitate towards positive responses, so they may not work best if you’re less inclined to accept everything.)
Also, if you give this a shot and find that you prefer to write your own replies, go back to Settings and turn these features off.
Update July 6, 2020 at 5:10 PM ET: This article was originally published on April 5, 2019; Updated introduction and instructions for using Smart Replay and Smart Compose.
Update July 28, 2021, 2:30 PM ET: The entry has been updated with some instructions and screenshots.