Gmail Feature Request: Give Me a “Mark as Read,” Forward, or Third Button in the Notification Preview

Each morning, I wake up to the alarm on my phone, pick it up after snoozing it a couple of times, and then immediately swipe down the notification bar to see what kind of mess is going on in my three Gmail inboxes. Since there are typically dozens awaiting action, the notification preview forces me to enter the inbox to deal with them. But once I’ve done that, the notifications continue to pop up throughout the day (some times before I get out of bed), one at a time, with actionable buttons for “reply” or “delete.” These button additions by the Android team to notifications have been game-changing, if you ask me. Being able to instantly react to an email that comes through your inbox is something I could not live without now that I have experienced it.

I want more, though. With growing displays and resolutions, there is room for a third button. I want a third button!

As you can tell from my unprofessional quick mock-ups at the top, I could use either a “mark as read” or a “forward” button. How often do you see an email pop through your notifications that you don’t necessarily want to delete or archive, but you think you’ve seen enough in the preview to mark it as read? Caught up in a lengthy cc thread? Tap the “mark as read” button and move on with your day.

But maybe more importantly, how many times have you received an email that doesn’t exactly require a reply, but maybe a delegation? Enter the “forward” button. While hitting “reply” will then take you into the composer that will then let you switch over to “forward,” a direct “forward” button would save even more time.

Obviously, this idea is simply a dream of mine to help make my day easier (should help many of you too), but could never happen unless the Gmail team sees it and decides that it is helpful enough to include. Basically, this is me brainstorming, something I often do in the wee hours of the morning.

Thoughts on the idea?

On a side note:  Any other feature requests you’d like us to write up? I get the feeling that you all have ideas that need to be released to the world. We could easily turn this into a regular feature. If you’ve got something good, hit us up and maybe we’ll feature it.