One of my post (about getting a free Warhammer Online trial key) requires me to constantly sending emails to different email addresses. Whenever I can get a hold of a new key, I need to send basically the same email over and over with my Gmail account.
If you are in the same position as I do, here is what you should do to setup and use the email templates feature in Gmail. It’s hidden, but it does exists!
The email templates feature in Gmail is actually called “Canned Responses“. It is not enabled by default simply because it’s still an experimental feature in Gmail Labs. There’s nothing to worry about though as this feature is as safe as it can be. Even if it screws up, you can see it straight away on your screen.
Follow these steps to enable Canned Responses (Email Templates) in Gmail:
- Go to “Settings” on the top right menu on your Gmail.
- Then go to the sub menu called “Labs“.
- Search for “Canned Responses” and Enable it. Then, scroll towards the bottom of the page and click “Save Changes“.
Now you should be able to see a new link called “Canned responses” under your Subject text field whenever you are writing a new email.
To save an email template, simply write an email that you are going to use over and over in the future, click the new Canned responses link, and choose Save (You might want to click on the “New canned response” if it’s a new template).
To use/insert an email template, simply click on the “Canned responses” whenever you are composing a new email, and then click on your saved template under the “Insert”. Gmail will automatically add it in for you.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Google seems to think of everything hey. This is great, thanks for the crash tutorial on it.
Great feature. Thanks for sharing this. Great that you discovered this feature.
This is great find..I was looking to use custom template in outlook but now I don;t need to.
Stumbled!!
Thanks for the stumble! Really appreciate it
Thanks, Michael. This “canned response” is exactly what I need. Gone are the days of repetitive “copy and paste”.
Yan
PS: what theme do you use for your Gmail, Mike?
You’re welcome, Yan. As for the theme, it’s “Shiny”. I like it a lot. Nice, simple, and elegant
Yeah, nice, simple, and elegant….. just like me…
Oooo… I don’t you’re simple right?
Wow, there is a lot more cool features besides canned responses. Thanks for sharing it.
Yeah, Google has an entire lab of great free apps to use in your gmail account.
Thanks for sharing this Mikey!
Thank you so much for this tutorial
I really needed to know about this
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hi, wonder how to insert a ready make template to gmail? That meant i’ve found some templates from internet and now want to use it in gmail but i don’t know how to use it directly.
Hm don’t think you can import some templates to Gmail to be used. Most likely you’ll just have to recreate it from scratch, unfortunately
Hi Michel, really thanks for great post. I’m so tired read so many post about this topic and tried it…… and didn’t work.
FINALLY, I found your post, really make me easy and will bookmark your blog as my favorite info.
Thanks.
That’s great to hear Santy! Thanks for coming by just to say thanks, I appreciate it
Michael, it’s a great tip and looks to work well.
I can add the image to email and it previews fine, & save as a canned response.
But when I compose a new message with the canned response the image doesn’t show. When I look at Selection Source for the image it has title and alt but no src tag.
I thought it might have been the long URL I was using for the link but I turned it to a tinyurl and no different.
Hi ,
Very useful tutorial.Thanks a lot.
I was able to insert images alongwith my name using canned response.But,the problem I face is that,I just keep it at the end(probably any forward mails) where we will have signatures.But,the attachment goes to the top-most left corner (i.e)beginning of the email.
I tried this several times by keeping the cursor at the end & insert the canned response but get the same problem.
Please help me out in this.
Thanks in advance.