Creating Stationery/Canned Responses in Google Mail

This KB Article References: Google Mail
This Information is Intended for: Instructors, Staff, Students
Created: 10/11/2012 Last Updated: 08/11/2020

If you would like to create stationery (saved messages you can easily send repeatedly) or have more than one possible signature, you can use the Canned Responses (templates) in Google Mail. This feature saves text that you can easily insert into your messages, so it's perfect for those who need to send the same message(s) repeatedly.

It's important to know that with Canned Responses, you can only save the subject and body of the message. That is, using Canned Responses, you cannot save the To, Cc, Bcc, or From fields, nor can you save regular attachments (but you can send attachments stored on Google Drive). If you need to save a list of names/emails for a canned response, create a personal contact group in Contacts; then, adding that group to the To field will automatically fill in the email addresses of those in your contact group.
sample message showing subject, body, and drive link to attachment saved in canned responses and To, Cc, Bcc, From and regular attachments not saved

To Use Canned Responses

Step 1: Enable Canned Responses

  1. In Settings, go to Advanced
  2. Find Canned Responses on the list
  3. Click the button next to Enable to turn it on
  4. Scroll to the top and click Save Changes

Step 2: Create a Canned Response

  1. Return to Compose a new message
  2. Type the content you want to save in the subject and/or body of the message
  3. Click on the drop down "" in the bottom right corner
  4. Click on Canned Responses
  5. Click on New canned response... 
  6. Type the name for this canned response
  7. Click Ok
  8. To create additional Canned Responses, repeat steps 1-7 

Step 3: Insert a Canned Response

  1. Compose another new message
  2. Click on the drop down "" in the bottom right corner
  3. Click on Canned Responses 
  4. Under Insert, click the name of the canned response you created in Step 2 above
  5. Your canned response is inserted in the subject and/or body of your message
IMPORTANT NOTE: Canned Responses are saved in All Mail as Drafts (but they do not appear in your Drafts label (in the list on the left)). Thus, do not delete items marked Draft from All Mail, or you will delete your canned responses. However, since you will not see your canned responses under your Drafts label (in the list on the left), you may delete drafts from there (but not from All Mail).

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