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June 5, 2006 9:55 AM

How do you mark specific replies in Gmail as unread?

I share a gmail account, and when we receive replies to emails I will go in and read them and then mark the conversation as unread, this is a problem because when someone else logs in to view the conversation the entire thread is now marked as new and everything in it has been expanded. It will then make you scroll through a ton of emails to figure out what you havent read, or you have to start looking at timestamps to figure out what is new. This gets pretty cumbersome in conversations over 10 replies especially when each reply attaches the previous replies it gets exponentially longer each time.

Is there an easy way to mark the newest, or specific emails in a conversation as unread?

posted by skrike to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

I don't believe there is a way.

You could use the starring system for this, unless you use it for other things. As in, you could mark the thread unread, and star the last message that genuinely was unread.

I don't know.
posted by chicobangs at 10:03 AM on June 5, 2006

This is very easy to do... just check the checkbox next to the specific e-mail message... Go to the drop down menu item that states "More Actions..." and select "Mark as unread".

Done.
posted by randomthoughts at 10:16 AM on June 5, 2006

No, I don't think there is a way either. Perhaps the person with whom you share the account could set up another GMail account. Then, all the incoming and ougoing email of the original account could be set to forward to the new one (forwarding settings are in the Gmail Options screen). Replies would still have to be sent from the original account though.
posted by matthewr at 10:17 AM on June 5, 2006

randomthoughts, I believe that marks the whole thread as unread, which is not what the questioner wants.
posted by matthewr at 10:18 AM on June 5, 2006

I think he wants a certain reply thread within a message itself marked as unread, not the entire message. I tried random's suggestion with a sample multi-reply thread and it marked the entire thread as unread, not just one single reply within it. When a new response to the thread comes in the inbox, only the replying person's name is bolded, not all of the rest of them, like:

Whole thread unread:
Me, You, Me, You, Me, You

Continuing thread with a new reply:
Me, You, Me, You, Me, You

I'm thinking he's looking for a way to make the latter example redone, instead of marking the entire thing unread as in the first case, it seems.
posted by vanoakenfold at 10:24 AM on June 5, 2006

I would go with the starring system. But instead of starring the entire thread, just star the individual reply within the thread, which you have the option of doing. When the previous read-threads are collapsed when looking at the message itself, you have the option of starring individual threads within it.
posted by vanoakenfold at 10:28 AM on June 5, 2006

Replies would still have to be sent from the original account though.

Actually, you can set Gmail to send mail "from" another account now.
posted by designbot at 10:59 AM on June 5, 2006

Use Thunderbird and the POP3 setup. Even when the emails are read in one format (Thunderbird or Internet) the other shows not read. One uses one, the other the other. This works on one machine or two (or more).
posted by JohnnyGunn at 1:56 PM on June 5, 2006

You can't do it. I suggest you turn on the keyboard shortcuts which will make navigating through the thread (by using the "n" and "p" keys) much faster. Once you're quickly jumping from message to message it'll be less of a bother.
posted by exhilaration at 2:11 PM on June 5, 2006

I agree with vanoakenfold, I think your best option is to "star" the unread messages. It will have the desired end effect, in that unread messages will be marked, and when opened, will expand only the starred (unread) message.
posted by geeky at 6:18 PM on June 5, 2006