How to Create Email Templates in Gmail: The 2024 Guide

What to start using email templates? Here’s a guide to help you get set up and start using them.

If you are tired of writing the same email over and over again or even copying and pasting the content on new ones, you seriously need to learn how to create email templates. This guide will talk specifically about how you can do this in Gmail, with simple and easy steps that won’t take much of your time.

You’ll quickly notice how much time you’re saving, and learn how to share these templates with your team to unify all the communication between clients, partners, and providers.

How to Create Email Templates in Gmail.

Creating templates in Gmail is a simple task, that takes just a few minutes. In fact, the only step that will make you spend more time on this process may be typing the email template, if you don’t have it already.

First things first, you need to enable the templates on Gmail settings. You can simply follow these steps:

1. Click on Settings (represented by the gear icon) in the top right corner of your screen.
2. Then click the button “See all settings”
   
3. Select the tab “Advanced”
4. In the section “Templates” choose “Enable”
   
5. Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the menu

This last action will redirect you to your inbox so that you can start creating templates:

1. Click on the “Compose” button. The New Message window will open
2. Start typing your email template and when you’re done, click on the three dots in the bottom-right corner of the compose window
3. Hover the option “Template” and next on “Save draft as template”
4. Choose the option “Save as new template”
5. Enter the name of the new template, then hit the save button

Sending email templates.

Sending a new message using a template is as simple as creating one. It’s only a few clicks:

1. Start a new email draft by clicking the “Compose” button
2. Click the three dots in the bottom right corner of the compose window
3. Hover the cursor on “Templates”
4. Choose the template you want to use
5. The template will appear on the compose window, and you will be able to edit it before hitting “Send”

You can also automate the sending of messages from templates, by setting up Gmail filters. For example, you can create a filter for emails containing certain terms or keywords, filing the field “Has the words”. Or even putting email addresses from people to whom you will need to reply, in the field “From”.

Once you create a filter, you can set actions to perform on the filtered criteria. And here’s where you can choose the template you want to send to the specified receivers.

You just need to mark the checkbox “Send template”, and choose the template you desire. Every email with the criteria you’ve selected will automatically receive a template. But be careful and use this feature wisely choosing very specific keywords, for example. This way you will avoid any misunderstandings.

How to manage existing templates.

Most of the time when you use templates you will need to edit them somehow, for example, to add a piece of information. Or it can happen that a template is no longer useful and you need to delete it.

That’s why in Gmail you can edit them in two ways: overwriting an existing one or deleting it.

Deleting a template

To delete a template, click again on the three dots on the bottom right of the compose window. Hover the option “Templates”, then “Delete template” and choose the template you want to delete.

Overwriting a template

In case you want to make changes in one of your templates, you can’t edit, unfortunately. But it’s possible to overwrite it.

First, you need to write the new version of the template, and then click the three dots on the bottom right corner of the compose window. Next hover “Templates” and after “Save draft as template”, click the name of the template you would like to change under “Overwrite Template”.

Email templates in Gmail for businesses.

If you use Gmail as your business email, you know the importance of giving a higher level of professionalism with personalization and collaboration features for you and your team.

Unfortunately, vanilla Gmail is limited, offering only what we have explained earlier in this post: creating simple templates, and overwriting and deleting them. There’s so much more you can do in Gmail to help with your productivity than simple creating email templates in Gmail.

That’s why there are extensions you can use to improve your experience within Gmail, Drag being one of them. Drag helps you to run your entire workflow using emails and tasks, that you can share with your team without leaving your inbox.

Utilizing tools such as Drag means being able to truly collaborate with your team across all of your business workflows inside Gmail (including email templates). You can make the most of shareable email templates, email sequences (which is effectively automatic follow-ups based on rules) and a large additional range of features such as email personalization, email tracking and other tools to help save time in your day.

Templates and email sequences

You can set Drag email templates as email sequences, which is great for teams that need to send follow-ups to leads, clients, or partners, for example. With Drag you can add these sequences to any email template you desire automatically. Imagine doing this in Gmail: you would need to create templates manually, email by email.

Personalized fields

You can use custom fields to add the receiver’s First Name, Last Name, and Company, to make the email look much more personal. This is a good practice when sending any email, mainly for outreach. One great aspect of Drag’s custom fields is that they are automatically inserted into email follow-ups, so you will only need to fill them manually the first time.

Shared email templates

You can also share Drag email templates with your team members, synchronizing them, and keeping a pattern of messages across your whole organization. This leads to transparency and consistency in your branding, which are key factors to reach the public and keep them interested in your company.

Notice that Gmail templates are only available per email address, so the only way of sharing them is by copying and pasting the same templates into each employee’s account.

Wrapping up

Using email templates in Gmail really saves you time. It’s quick to set up and straightforward – you can follow our guide within a few minutes and start using it in no time.

If you’re looking to take it one step further, you can share your productivity across your team by installing tools such as Drag bringing a whole range of features to run your workflow.

Your templates will be more customizable and the fact that you can share them with your whole team will make a huge difference in the way the company communicates with others. Start creating and sharing email templates today.