Up until recently, swiping an email in the Android Gmail app meant one of two things would happen: you would either delete the email or you would archive it. A new update brings users a lot more options, one of which is great for the accidental swiper.

With the new Gmail update, there are six possible actions for the swiping gesture:

  1. Archive to email out of your inbox
  2. Move the email to the trash folder
  3. Move the email to a different folder (or tag)
  4. Mark emails as read or unread
  5. Snooze the email
  6. No action is taken

That last one is a God-send for those of us who are always inadvertently trashing or archiving important messages. The ability to snooze emails is a relatively new feature for Gmail users, introduced with the email platform's big revamp. Snoozing emails in Gmail means that you can choose to temporarily banish the email from your inbox and have it return later.

If you select Snooze as one of your swipe actions, you'll see a popup window allowing you to determine when that email will pop back into your inbox. (Snoozing won't work with G Suite accounts. While you may see it as an option in the menu, it won't actually work when you swipe a message.)

Here's what you need to do to change your swipe settings:

  1. Go to Settings > General Settings > Swipe actions.
  2. Tap the Change button above the Right Swipe and the Left Swipe options.
  3. Select your choice from the menu: archive, delete, mark as read/unread, move to, snooze, or none.

Customizing gestures in Gmail's Android app not only makes the app so much more user friendly, but it could also be a handy way to keep your Gmail inbox clean while on the go.