How to Snooze Emails in Apple Mail: A Comprehensive Guide

Sometimes, it can be hard to keep up with all the emails you have to keep track of, respond to, or follow up on. At times, you don’t have the time to reply to an email right away, or you want to take your time to think of an appropriate response. In those cases, you may be worried you’ll forget to reply or follow up on that email altogether. 

If you’re using Apple Mail as your default email client, you may be wondering if there’s a way to snooze an email or receive a reminder about it at a later time. 

The bad news is that Apple Mail doesn’t offer a native snooze email feature, which is present in many other email clients, such as Canary Mail. However, Apple Mail has another feature – Remind Me – that allows users to set email reminders. 

In this article, we’ll show you how to snooze emails in Mac Mail using the Remind Me feature and share some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of this handy feature.  

Can You Snooze Emails in Mac Mail?

If you’ve ever wondered how to snooze an email in Apple Mail, we’ve got good news. Although Apple Mail doesn’t have a built-in snoozing feature per se, it is now equipped with the Remind Me feature, which is similar to email snoozing. 

Whether you want to defer responding to an email until later in the day or need to follow up on a message at a specific time, the Remind Me feature will be an excellent solution for you. 

With this feature, you can effectively snooze emails by setting a reminder to revisit them at a later time. This feature will be especially useful to you if you receive tons of emails throughout the day and need a convenient way to manage your inbox, including email reminders. 

The Remind Me feature is available in the Mail app on all Apple devices, so you can take advantage of it whether you’re using Apple Mail on your Mac computer or your iPhone.

How to Snooze Emails in Mac Mail

While Apple Mail doesn’t have a built-in snooze feature for emails like some other email clients, it has another feature called Remind Me. With this feature, you can achieve a similar effect to snoozing emails. 

Here’s how to use the Remind Me feature on your Mac computer: 

1. Launch the Apple Mail application on your Mac. 
2. Choose the email that you want to snooze or set a reminder for. 
3. Right-click on the email and scroll down to the Remind Me option. When you hover over it, it’ll open up a drop-down menu with 4 options: Remind Me in 1 Hour, Remind Me Tonight, Remind Me Tomorrow, and Remind Me Later. Select when you’d like Apple Mail to remind you about the email. 
4. If you select “Remind Me Later,” a window will open, prompting you to choose the date and time you want to be reminded about the email. 
5. After you set the reminder, a folder named “Remind Me” will automatically appear on the sidebar, containing all the emails for which you set reminders. 
6. If you want to clear the reminder you have set, right-click on the email, hover over the Remind Me option, and select “Clear Reminder.”

Here’s how to use the Remind Me feature on your iPhone: 

1. Open the Mail app on your phone. 
2. Choose the email for which you want to set a reminder. 
3. Swipe the selected email to the left to reveal more options. Click on “More”. 
4. The app will show more actions you can take regarding this email, one of which should say “Remind Me.” When you click on it, you’ll be shown 4 additional options: Remind Me in 1 Hour, Remind Me Tonight, Remind Me Tomorrow, and Remind Me Later. Select when you’d like Apple Mail to remind you about the email. 
5. If you select “Remind Me Later,” a window will open, prompting you to choose the date and time you want to be reminded about the email. 
6. After you set the reminder, a folder named “Remind Me” will automatically appear on the sidebar, containing all the emails for which you set reminders. 
7. If you want to clear the reminder you have set, swipe left on the email to reveal the “Clear” option. This will remove the reminder. 

Tips and Tricks to Snooze Emails in Apple Mail

As we already explained above, the best way to snooze emails in Apple Mail is to use the Remind Me feature. While setting email reminders is pretty straightforward, you can use some fun tricks to get the most out of this handy feature. 

Here are some practical tips and tricks for setting email reminders in Apple Mail.

Set a Custom Date & Time 

With the Remind Me feature, you can choose from 4 time intervals to set a reminder for your email: in 1 hour, tonight, tomorrow, or later. If you’d like to set a custom date and time, select the “Remind Me Later” option. When you do, a calendar will pop up, prompting you to choose the date and time you want to be reminded about this email.  

Batch Snooze Emails 

Need to snooze multiple emails at once? Apple Mail allows you to do that. Just select all the emails you want to set reminders for, right-click, and select the “Remind Me” option. 

This hack will be extremely handy if you don’t want to set a reminder for every single email separately or if you have a lot of emails that you’d like to be reminded about, for example, when you come back from your vacation. 

Set a Keyboard Shortcut

If you find yourself setting frequent reminders for your emails, you may want to set up a custom keyboard shortcut to do it more quickly. With a dedicated keyboard shortcut, you won’t have to click through the menu options every time. 

To set a custom keyboard shortcut for setting email reminders, go to Systems Settings > Keyboard and choose Keyboard Shortcuts. Then, select App Shortcuts and choose Mail. There, you can create a custom shortcut for the Remind Me function. 

Ask Siri to Set a Reminder

If you’re a fan of voice commands, you can ask Siri to remind you about an email at a later time. However, this is a workaround, as Siri won’t set a reminder within the Mail app. Instead, your voice assistant will write a reminder in the Reminders app. 

To prompt Siri to do that, you can say something like, “Hey Siri, remind me about the last email from person/company at 7 pm tomorrow.” This is a great way to set a quick reminder to take action on a specific email if you’re on the go and can’t use the Remind Me feature. 

Mark Emails as Unread

If you don’t want to use the Remind Me feature, there’s another method you can use to mark the emails you don’t want to forget about. You can simply mark the emails you want to revisit at a later time as unread. 

If you’re on your Mac, simply right-click the email and select the “Mark as Unread” option. If you’re on your phone, swipe the email left to reveal the “More” option. Then, select “Mark as Unread.” 

Although this is the quickest way to mark the emails you’d like to revisit later, it can get chaotic pretty quickly, as the more emails you receive, the further down in your inbox these emails will land.  

Consider an Alternative Email Client With the Snooze Emails Feature

Although you can use the Remind Me feature to set reminders for your emails in Apple Mail, you may need more advanced email management features, including snoozing emails. If so, you might need to consider switching to an alternative email client. 

Luckily, there are many email clients with robust email organization options, one of them being Canary Mail. It’s the most advanced email client on the market, with modern features like pinning emails, read receipts, email snoozing, and even an AI email assistant. 

Aside from that, Canary Mail allows you to handle multiple email accounts. You can easily sync all your email accounts from various platforms, like Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, ProtonMail, and more – right into one place.

Snooze Emails in Mac Mail, the Bottom Line

While Mac Mail doesn’t have a default snooze email feature, it has another equally handy feature that allows users to set reminders for specific emails – the Remind Me feature. With this feature, you can easily set emails aside, and the Mail app will send you a reminder when it’s time to take action. 

By leveraging the Remind Me feature, you can effectively snooze emails and make sure that you address them at a time that works best for you. 

Although this is equally effective as a default snooze emails feature, if you feel Mac Mail’s proposition doesn’t fulfill your email management needs, you can always consider switching to an alternative email client like Canary Mail. 

How to Snooze an Email in Apple Mail, the FAQs