When it comes to email, I often find myself going through my inbox late at night, long after the last work-related message of the day arrives. There’s a peace in doing that, in that more emails aren’t showing up while I chip away at the massive pile that accumulated during the day.
To combat the problem, I’ve been using Streak, an email scheduler, for the last few years. The service lets me send an email at 2 a.m. but doesn’t deliver it until 9 a.m. when I’m just settling in with my morning coffee. Now, to celebrate Gmail’s 15th birthday, Google has added a scheduling feature directly to Gmail so I can do the same thing without using a third party service.
The feature is slowly rolling out to Gmail users and will be available on the web as well as through Gmail’s iOS and Android apps.
Once it’s available on the web, you’ll see a small downward pointing arrow beside the “Send” button when you compose an email. Press it, and a “Schedule Send” popup will appear. When you click on that, Google will suggest a few times for you to send the message as well as let you pick your date and time to move the note along.
On mobile, you’ll tap on the hamburger menu (those three dots) beside the send arrive to pull up the feature.
With the launch Google also added a “Scheduled” folder to Gmail, so you can pop in and see all of the messages you have scheduled to go out and when they’re expected to arrive. If you plan something and then decide you’d rather send it ASAP instead, the service will allow you to make changes any time before it sends the message.
The best part? You can convince everyone you’re already hard at work while you’re still in your pajamas.