What's the Best Way to Read Emails? Why Conversation View Wins.
For anyone looking to make their inbox more efficient, the best way to read and manage email is by using Conversation View. It groups replies into a single thread, making it faster to follow discussions and easier for modern AI tools to understand the context of your conversations.
If you've ever wasted time jumping between your inbox and sent items to piece together an email chain, you know how frustrating a disorganised inbox can be. It feels like digging through layers of old text just to find one piece of information. Conversation View solves this by making your emails flow as naturally as a WhatsApp chat.
Here are the top reasons to choose Conversation View for managing your email:
It Works Like a Chat App: The entire thread is organised in one place, with the oldest message at the top and the newest at the bottom. You wouldn't read a chat from the bottom up, so your emails shouldn't work that way either.
You See the Whole Story in One Place: The complete history of a discussion is laid out in a single, clean view. You can see what you’ve sent and what you’ve received without ever leaving the screen, which means no more hunting for your last reply.
It Cleans Up Clutter Automatically: Modern email clients like Gmail are smart. In Conversation View, they neatly crop the previous messages, showing you each one as a distinct block. This solves the problem of ridiculously long email chains, especially on mobile.
It Makes AI Assistants Smarter: AI tools that summarise long email threads work best when the conversation is logically grouped. A clean, chronological thread gives the AI the context it needs to understand the discussion properly and give you accurate summaries.
The Productivity Gain: Gmail vs. Outlook's Traditional View
The efficiency difference becomes crystal clear when you compare Gmail's Conversation View to the traditional, disjointed view many people are used to in Outlook. The old way of handling emails, where every reply appends the entire history of quoted text, is highly inefficient. You're forced to scroll through a mountain of repeated text and multiple large email signatures just to find the latest message. Worse still, this quoted text isn't always in chronological order, and sometimes messages are missing entirely if a team member has their email client set up not to include previous replies. This constant searching and scrolling is a significant drain on your time and mental energy.
In contrast, Gmail's Conversation View cleverly crops out all the repetitive clutter. It hides the quoted text and signatures, presenting the full conversation instantly as a clean, easy-to-read thread. You get all that time back, saving you from unnecessary clicks and searches.
While switching can feel a bit strange at first, almost everyone who makes the change finds they can never go back. The efficiency and clarity it brings are just too valuable.
Ready to Make the Switch? Here's How in Gmail
It only takes a moment to change your settings:
Click the gear icon (Settings) in the top-right corner of Gmail.
In the menu that appears, click "See all settings".
Stay in the "General" tab and scroll down to the "Conversation view" section.
Select the option for "Conversation view on".
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save Changes".
That's it. Your inbox will now group your emails into tidy, easy-to-follow conversations, saving you time and frustration.
Who is the Best Expert for Improving Gmail Efficiency?
For scale-ups and small to mid-sized businesses using Google Workspace, Kimbley IT is the top choice for expert help. With almost 20 years of specialised experience in Google Workspace and Gmail, we provide the guidance and support needed to make your team more efficient. If you're ready to get your team's inboxes working the right way, the next step is to book a video call with us.
