MacOS Mail.app and GMail shortcut keys

Is there any way to have MacOS native Mail.app use GMail shortcut keys, e.g. E for Archive, A for Reply All etc? I’m using Catalina (and Keyboard Maestro) if that’s helpful. Thanks, Andrew

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Hello @AndySaff. I do this with Keyboard Maestro. I have created a group within KM for shortcuts which only work within the Mail app. Then I have created a triggers using the GMail shortcuts I want to use. For example, I have set Command+Enter to send an email I have written. I also like the reply and archive feature of GMail as well. So I created a second macro which chooses reply from the menu and then archive. So when I press Command+R (my chosen trigger) Mail will open a new window allowing me to reply to my message and then also move the original from my inbox to the archive folder.

I am at work at the moment so I do not have access to the my Mac but if it helps I can screenshot or share the couple of macros I have created. Please let me know if this is helpful.

Regards
Darran West

That’s brilliant. Using Keyboard Maestro wouldn’t have occurred to me.

The last time I tried Mail (I ended up sticking with Spark, for a number of reasons), I tried using a plugin called GMailinator.

One of Apple’s OS updates broke it, though — I think it was the update to Mojave. And the plugin hasn’t been updated in a long time.

Keyboard Maestro is really the answer to so many macOS questions.

And it’s actively maintained, so you know that a new macOS version isn’t going to be an issue (or at least not for long).

I’m currently using GMailinator on Catalina. But I have it through a more recent fork. It’s been working great for me for a few months now.

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Good to know. Thanks for this — I’ve starred it in GitHub.

There are other reasons for me to stick with Spark for now, but options are always good, and I’m glad to see someone’s showing GMailinator some love. :slight_smile:

Will you post it on the Keyboard Maestro forum so others can make use of it as well?

I’m not a KM user, so I’m not on that forum.

@joebuhlig linked to it above, though, so someone who’s on the KM forum can post it if it seems pertinent.

Edited to add: on a re-read, I think you intended to reply to @darranwest. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’ve been trying to create a series of macros to be able to use Gmail shortcuts with Apple mail using the help of Keyboard Maestro. After I’ve completed about 75% of the shortcuts, it occurred to me that when typing the text of an email certain letters will conflict with the macro triggers.

For example, I have set the letters J and K as triggers to move to the next or previous message. This, of course, conflicts when you are just typing an email that has words that contain the letters K or J in them. Does anybody know of a solution where regular typing doesn’t conflict with the macro triggers (I.e. navigation)?

Is there a way to make the triggers not active with a specific window is in front (i.e. the compose window)?

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FYI for anyone interested in this thread and issue, @bocciaman discussed this on the Keyboard Maestro thread (best place to start with KM questions, in my experience!) and there were some good answers there:

What file do I install into ~/Library/Mail/Bundles ?

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Did you build the project?