At the request of some fairly high profile users, we’re going to start posting some tips about using Gmail at work on this blog that you might – or might not – find useful. Feel free to pitch in with your own tips in the comments section below!
Avoid that dreaded moment when a private email gets sent round to everyone in a conversation!
Sometimes you want to send a private message to only one person in an ongoing group conversation. You could just start a new conversation. But if you want to keep everything together, you can send a private email within a group conversation, without the others subsequently seeing it in the minimized email thread.
First send your private message from the reply pane at the bottom as normal, just editing the Recipients. Once you want to continue the group conversation don’t use the reply pane at the bottom – it could include your private message also.
Instead, scroll up to the last group email in the conversation and click the reply button on that email. This way, your private email will be cut out of the thread and there will be no embarrassments!
Always be sure to check the minimized thread list at the bottom of your email though before you end it to ensure there are no private messages included.
Lastly, make sure you’ve enabled the brilliant ‘Undo Send’ feature in Gmail (Gmail Settings>Labs>enable ‘Undo Send’). This gives you a 10 second window after you send an email to retrieve it for editing – perfect if you make a mistake like including a private message in a thread.
This was written by Andy Mitchell