We all receive emails that require our attention, but not necessarily right now. Perhaps it’s an itinerary for a flight three weeks away, or a request from a colleague that you cannot fulfil until you finish your current project on Friday. Leaving these emails sitting in your inbox creates clutter, but archiving them risks forgetting about them entirely.
Gmail’s “Snooze” feature is the perfect solution. It allows you to temporarily banish an email from your inbox and schedule it to magically reappear at the exact moment you are ready to deal with it.
How to Snooze an Email on Desktop
You can snooze an email directly from your main inbox view without even opening it.
- Open Gmail in your web browser.
- Hover your mouse cursor over the email you want to postpone.
- A row of small icons will appear on the far right side of that email’s row. Click the icon that looks like a clock (Snooze).
- A dropdown menu will appear with suggested times (e.g., “Later today at 6:00 PM,” “Tomorrow at 8:00 AM,” or “Next week”).
- If the suggested times don’t work for you, click Pick date & time at the bottom of the list.
- Select the exact day and time you want the email to return, and click Save.
The email will instantly vanish from your inbox, keeping your workspace clean.
How to Snooze an Email on Mobile (iOS & Android)
The process is similarly fast on the Gmail smartphone app.
- Open the Gmail app on your phone.
- Tap to open the specific email you want to snooze.
- Tap the three-dot menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Tap Snooze.
- Select one of the suggested times or tap Pick date & time to set a custom schedule.
How to Find Snoozed Emails Early
If you finish your current project early and want to tackle that email before its scheduled return time, it is not lost.
Simply look at the left-hand navigation sidebar in Gmail (where Inbox, Sent, and Drafts are located) and click on the Snoozed folder. You will see a chronological list of every email you have hidden, along with the date they are scheduled to return. You can open them from here or click the clock icon again to “Unsnooze” them immediately.