How to Write a Canned Response on Gmail

I receive so many boring, unoriginal emails each day that sometimes I lose my will to offer a creative response. Thankfully, Google has made it possible for me to write back while also forgoing any thought whatsoever!

Here’s a quick little guide to responding to an email with a prewritten note.

1. Click the tool symbol on the top right of your inbox home page and select Settings.

2. Select the Labs tab.

3. Scroll down to an option called Canned Responses. Enable the feature, and then go to the bottom of the page and save your changes.

4. Now return to your inbox and find a stupid email that you’d like to send a canned response to. Maybe one from your boss about work that you have to respond to. [Editor’s note: Please see me in my office.] Write whatever benign thing you need to. Something evergreen like “Thanks!” or “Oops, sorry, didn’t see this!” Then select the arrow in the bottom-right corner of the message.

5. You’ll see an option to create a canned response.

6. A new window will fan out to the left and give you the option to save the response you just wrote for future use. Select New canned response, and a box will pop up, asking you to give it a name. The default text is whatever the email is titled. Press OK.

7. There you go. Now the response is saved for whenever you need to use it again. Which I predict will be all the time with Jason. Anytime you’d like to save time writing back, just follow step 4 and select from your collection. Or create a new one.

Pretty soon you’ll be able to feign existence via email while also watching True Detective episodes at work. Hey, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. [Editor’s note: My office. NOW!]

Follow Yahoo Tech on Facebook for all the latest.