Make ‘Reply to All’. as Default Option in Gmail

Gmail by default shows reply option in the rightmost dropdown for any mail. However, for a section of people, who use Gmail for business purpose it is very inconvenient to select ‘reply to all‘ each time from the dropdown for keeping everyone in the loop.

Note: Just like outlook Ctrl + Shift + r shortcut key for replying to all, you can use single shortcut key ‘a’. [More Gmail shortcuts]





A personal reply is always the preferable way for communication over emails. Reply to All is only suited in few cases where the recipients are aware of each other and belong to same category. Moreover, you could be included in BCC (Blank Carbon Copy) and a reply to all could potentially land you in trouble. It is also an annoyance for some who keep on receiving bulk email conversation threads. Therefore, everyone should use this feature with extra caution. Being said this, let’s look how to make reply to all as default button in Gmail.

This can easily be done with the use of Gmail Labs Feature. Follow these steps for changing default button action –

1) Go to Gmail Settings found at rightmost top of page.

2) Open Labs from Settings Page.

3) Press Ctrl+F for find the ‘reply to all’ feature.

4) Enable it and Save your settings.




That’s all. Now when you compose new mails, reply will be replaced by reply to all. You can find old single reply from the drop down. To bring back the old behaviour, you will need to deactivate this lab feature.