I get the logic behind conversation view<\/strong>. It keeps email chains all as tight threads<\/strong>\u00a0for, in theory, a more organized inbox and easier access to the entire history of an email chain.<\/p>\n But, to make a not-at-all-dated reference from early days of American Idol<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 it just wasn\u2019t working for me, dawg.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019ve found your way to this article, I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s not quite working for you either. Dawg.<\/p>\n In this article, I\u2019ll clarify exactly what conversation view is<\/strong>\u00a0and go over its pros<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 and its cons<\/strong>. I\u2019ll also walk you through how to turn it off<\/strong>\u00a0like I finally did. (And to turn it back on, in case you get cold feet.)<\/p>\n Gmail\u2019s conversation view is Google\u2019s way of grouping your email chains into self-contained threads.<\/p>\n Instead of each email appearing in your inbox individually, everything in the chain (that is, everything with the same subject line that\u2019s a reply to a prior message) is consolidated into one line<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Then, when you click into any email, Google also shows you all the other emails before and after it<\/strong>\u00a0in the thread. You can click into any of those emails as well.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example of an email chain in my inbox with conversation view turned on<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s what that looks like when I click into the thread. Each email in the thread is included individually<\/strong>, so you can click into them. This includes emails that were forwards or replies that didn\u2019t necessarily go to everyone in the chain.<\/p>\n Now here\u2019s how my inbox looks with conversation view turned off<\/strong>. Every message from the thread is on its own line (and has its own preview).<\/p>\n And here\u2019s what it looks like when I click into any email in the thread. We see the chain up to that point (because of how email works, the prior emails are included in replies) \u2014 unlike conversation view, here Gmail is not also showing us those actual emails themselves<\/strong>\u00a0threaded on one screen.<\/p>\n So as you can see, conversation mode makes a pretty significant difference for threads<\/strong>\u00a0in both the inbox and inside the emails themselves.<\/p>\n The main benefits of conversation view<\/strong>\u00a0are:<\/p>\n Those are strong arguments for conversation view \u2014 and seeing them, it makes sense why Google went all-in on this system for email thread organization.<\/p>\n Plenty of people also swear by conversation view (or, at least, don\u2019t think about turning it off) for the reasons above.<\/p>\n But it has its downsides, too.<\/p>\n Big enough downsides that they actually made me defy this Google suggestion and turn conversation view off<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Here are, in order, the six reasons that finally motivated me to be brave and turn off conversation view.<\/p>\n When conversation view is on and you look at Google\u2019s preview of the email in your inbox, you don\u2019t see a preview of the most recent email in the thread \u2014 you see the most recent unread<\/em>\u00a0email.<\/p>\n For instance, look again at this thread in my inbox. I\u2019m not seeing the most recent response, I\u2019m seeing the first person\u2019s email previewed there.<\/p>\n This is a problem if you mentally process email the way I do<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t always open emails right away. Often, I check the preview to see if it\u2019s an email that\u2019s urgent or that I want to read (or don\u2019t want to deal with right now)<\/strong>. If it feels less urgent, or I don\u2019t feel like taking care of it, or I want to keep it unread to remind myself to handle it later\u2026 I don\u2019t open it.<\/p>\n But when I can\u2019t see the preview of the most recent email, I don\u2019t know if I want or need to open it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Which brings me to the second reason why I turn conversation view off, which is a big one\u2026<\/p>\n When emails are buried in threads, it\u2019s easy to overlook replies or updates<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And sometimes those are important, urgent, or contain tasks that I need to put on my to-do list.<\/p>\n There were too many times I\u2019d miss an important email<\/strong>\u00a0until it was too late because I didn\u2019t realize it had come inside a thread.<\/p>\n This happens, in particular, a lot<\/em>\u00a0with my family\u2019s accountant, who I\u2019m pretty sure thinks I\u2019m completely irresponsible because of how often I\u2019ve missed urgent emails from him that got buried inside threads. Sometimes he even will write in threads telling my wife to make sure I respond.<\/p>\n Since I turned off conversation view, now I <\/strong>never<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0miss emails that require action<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The theory behind Gmail\u2019s threaded conversation view is that it keeps the inbox more organized.<\/p>\n For me, it has the opposite effect.<\/p>\n I like having pinpoint control over my inbox<\/strong>. Sometimes that involves archiving some emails in a thread and not others. Sometimes I just want to focus on one email, not that email inside of a big chain of other emails.<\/p>\n I want to maintain my own system for keeping things clean and organized<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Gmail has a very strong search function. (Making search the primary way of finding emails, rather than cataloging them into folders, was another of Google\u2019s email paradigm shifters.)<\/p>\n But if I want to find a specific email in a thread, I find it\u2019s easier, more efficient, and more effective for me to do a visual scan than run a full search<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That is: When conversation view is off, I can see each email\u2019s sender and the preview of its content and find whatever I\u2019m looking for without extra steps.<\/p>\n Threads can get messy, especially when there are a whole bunch of people all replying, sometimes just replying to you and not replying all, and forwarding.<\/p>\n By turning off conversation view, it keeps things cleaner, less chaotic, and less intimidating<\/strong>\u00a0to sort through.<\/p>\n When emails aren\u2019t grouped into one, I can reply to exactly what I need to without worrying about sending the wrong things to the wrong person<\/strong>. (As I mentioned in the prior point, this becomes especially<\/em>\u00a0true if there\u2019s a thread where sometimes people reply all and sometimes someone just replied to you.)<\/p>\n Archiving also becomes a lot easier<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 I can focus on either saving or archiving\/deleting some emails without trying to sift through them in a thread.<\/p>\n Now that I\u2019m sure you\u2019re wholly convinced, here\u2019s how to turn off conversation view.<\/p>\n Note: While I\u2019m providing instructions on both desktop and mobile, <\/em>you\u2019re turning conversation view off account-wide<\/strong><\/em>. So, for example, if you turn off conversation mode on your phone, you\u2019ll also stop seeing the grouped threads on desktop.<\/em><\/p>\n Open up Gmail in your browser.<\/p>\n Then click on the gear icon to bring up the settings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And in the settings, scroll to the bottom to where the heading is Email threading<\/strong>\u00a0and the checked box says Conversation view<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Uncheck the box<\/strong>\u00a0for Conversation view.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll need to then reload<\/strong>\u00a0your browser tab, but won\u2019t need to save the settings beyond that.<\/p>\n You\u2019re now out of conversation mode. And if you ever want to turn it back on, do these steps but, you know, in reverse<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll follow the same basic steps in the Gmail app on iOS and Android to turn off Gmail\u2019s conversation view.<\/p>\n In your mobile Gmail app on iOS or Android, tap on the hamburger icon in the top left corner.<\/p>\n Now scroll to the bottom of the menu, until you see Settings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n On iOS, tap on Email customizations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And then tap on the toggle<\/strong>\u00a0to turn off conversation view.<\/p>\n On Android, you\u2019ll have one less step. In the Settings<\/strong>, scroll down and uncheck the box<\/strong>\u00a0for conversation view.<\/p>\n Much like the desktop settings, if you ever want to turn conversation view back on from the mobile Gmail app, follow these steps in reverse<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Whether you turn Gmail conversation view on or off \u2014 and whether the people you send emails to turn it on or off \u2014 smart replies are a key part of successful emailing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Especially<\/em>\u00a0when you\u2019re sending out email campaigns \u2014 from sales outreach messages to marketing emails.<\/p>\n You\u2019re reading this article on GMass, and we\u2019re an email sending platform that actually works <\/strong>inside<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0of Gmail<\/strong>. So rather than going to a different site to send your marketing messages or mail merges or cold emails \u2014 you can do it all in Gmail.<\/p>\n We\u2019re quite popular \u2014 400,000+ users<\/strong>, more than 10,000+ ratings<\/strong>\u00a0with an average of 4.8 out of 5 stars<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 and one of the reasons is our innovative features.<\/p>\n Since it\u2019s especially relevant to this article, I want to talk about our \u201c<\/strong>send as replies<\/a><\/strong>\u201d feature<\/strong>.<\/p>\nGmail Conversation View: Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
What Is Conversation View in Gmail?<\/h2>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-on-inbox.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-on-email.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"Inbox](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-off-inbox.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"Thread](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-off-email.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\nWhat are the benefits of conversation view?<\/h3>\n
\n
The 6 Big Reasons Why I Turn off Conversation View<\/h2>\n
1. I like lazily gauging whether an email is worth opening<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-on-firstpreview-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n2. Turning it off helps me avoid losing or missing emails<\/h3>\n
3. Simpler organization<\/h3>\n
4. Better visual search<\/h3>\n
5. I don\u2019t get overwhelmed by long threads<\/h3>\n
6. More control over replies and archiving<\/h3>\n
How to Turn Off Conversation View (or Turn It Back On)<\/h2>\n
Turning off Gmail conversation view on desktop<\/h3>\n
![\"Open](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-settings.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"Turn](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-uncheckandreload.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\nTurning off Gmail conversation view on mobile<\/h3>\n
![\"Hamburger](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-mobile-menu.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"Settings](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-mobile-settings.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-mobile-ioscustomizations.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"Tap](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-mobile-toggle.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-mobile-android.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\nHow to Use Conversations to Get Better Results with Your Emails<\/h2>\n
![\"GMass](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-gmass.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n
![\"GMass's](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/convview-sendasreplies.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n