Gmail doesn’t have a native notes feature. You have five (and a half) workarounds: Google Tasks, Google Keep, Google Chat, drafts, inline quote replies, and labels as light status markers. Each has tradeoffs. For real team collaboration on an email, a tool like Missive (which lets you comment, assign, and chat on any email without forwarding) is usually the better answer.

Most of us have received an email from a customer or coworker that we can’t respond to right away. We need to check with someone, look something up, or come back when we have more context. Meanwhile, the email sits there and we forget why we left it.

If Gmail had a way to attach a note to an email, or comment on it like a Google Doc, this problem would be solved. It doesn’t. But there are workarounds, and a few better options outside Gmail, for teams that need to coordinate on email without creating a chain of forwards.

What are Gmail notes?

Gmail notes are annotations or context you attach to a specific email so you can pick it back up later without losing your place. Gmail doesn’t have a dedicated notes feature, but you can approximate one using other tools in Google Workspace, like Tasks, Keep, and labels, or by switching to a collaborative email client that treats notes as a first-class feature. This matters most when you need to remember something about an email thread or coordinate with someone else before replying.

5 (and a half) native Gmail options for adding notes

1. Using Google Tasks

You can add an email to Google Tasks to leave notes for yourself in the task description area.

Right-click on the email you want to add notes to and select “Add to tasks.” You can also click on the email and use the keyboard shortcut ⇧ + T (Shift + T).

You’ll see a task appear in the sidebar to the right of your email message. Click on it and add notes to yourself in the details area.

Click the mail icon below the task to open up the email you’ve associated with the note.

The downside: You can’t share your Google Tasks with others. If you want to collaborate on an email with a team member inside Gmail natively, you’ll need to forward the email to them or use Google Chat.

2. Using Google Keep

Google Keep can also be used to attach notes to an email in Gmail.

Open the email in which you want to add a note. Open the sidebar if it’s not already by clicking on the arrow on the left side of the screen. From the sidebar, select the Google Keep icon. A Google Keep panel will appear, where you can add as many notes as you need.

The downside: No text formatting and poor note organization. Notes stay tied to your personal account; there’s no way to share them inline with teammates.

3. Using Google Chat

You can use Google Chat to collaborate with team members, sort of.

Click Google Chat in the left sidebar of Gmail to trigger a chat pop-up. Add the team member or members you want to collaborate with, then copy, paste, and send the contents of the email you want to discuss with your team. It helps to add a link to the specific Gmail message thread so you can easily open it back up later.

The downside: Other team members can’t click the link you’ve added to reference the original email because it lives in your inbox, not theirs. And if you don’t provide enough details, the pasted content may not make much sense to the people you share it with.

This causes a lot of wasted time going back and forth. It usually saves more time to just forward the email to team members instead.

4. Using drafts to add comments

You can also use a draft to add notes for yourself. Reply to the email without sending it, and your message gets stored in your Drafts folder as a rough note attached to the thread.

5. Replying inline using quotes

Step 1. Sign in to your Gmail account, find the email you want to work with, and copy the text from the body of the email you want to reply inline to.

Step 2. Click reply.

Step 3. Click the Quote button to add a quote block in your email reply.

Step 4. Paste the text you copied from the original message next to the gray quote block line where your cursor is.

Step 5. Press Enter and reply with your response below the quote block.

5.5 Using Gmail labels

You can’t use labels to add the note itself, but you can use Gmail labels to indicate that a note is needed before a reply can be sent. Think of it as very lightweight status tracking inside your inbox. For real automation, you’d need a proper rules engine, which Gmail doesn’t offer natively.

How to comment and collaborate on email with Missive

Missive is a collaborative email client that sits on top of Gmail, Outlook, and other providers. It turns your inbox into a shared inbox where your team can comment, assign, and draft together without forwarding.

You can use it as a native desktop app on macOS and Microsoft Windows or as a web app in browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

Here are the ways teams use Missive to add private annotations and collaborate with coworkers on email.

Add private comments for yourself to emails

You can add private comments on any email and refer back to them later. Nobody else sees them unless you explicitly tag a coworker in.

Tag your team in comments on an email

Tag other team members in a comment by typing @ + their name. Tagging others will automatically share the email with them (without having to forward anything), so they can see your comment and reply to it.

They can reply with an inline comment or within a thread if they have multiple conversations within the email and want to keep topics organized.

Assign tasks with comments

You can turn a comment into a task if you have something you want to delegate to a team member or yourself without having to tab over to a project management tool and bog it down with more tasks.

If you’re anything like us, you like keyboard shortcuts. Missive makes it easy to create tasks: start typing your task description, then switch to task mode by pressing ⌘ + ⇧ + X on Mac or Control + Shift + X on other platforms.

Alternatively, type [ ] or - [ ] at the beginning of your comment. Assign the task to a team member using the @ + their name anywhere in your comment.

If you want to send tasks to a more formal project management tool, Missive has integrations with Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Todoist, and a Zapier connector for anything else you rely on.

Comment in style

Missive comments support styling options beyond plain text. You can add bold, italic, strikethrough, quote blocks, inline code, and code blocks.

Share attachments in a comment

Send attachments to customers without spending 10 minutes searching for them in Google Drive by dropping them into a comment. We use this to share zip files, PDFs, links, and screenshots without needing apps like Slack, where the context of the email itself gets lost.

Use rules to automate comments

To save time, you can use Missive’s rules and AI rules to automate comments based on message content, sender, timing, and more.

Delegating customer support when you’re busy

Let’s say you receive a new email from a customer that you can’t get to immediately, and your team likes to respond within 24 hours.

You can set up a rule in Missive to automatically move the email to a team inbox after a certain amount of time and add a comment that goes out to all members, letting them know you need someone to step in.

Stay on top of SLAs

You can set rules to apply to an entire team as well. Help your team maintain SLAs with customers by creating a rule that notifies everyone on the team whenever an email received during business hours goes 30+ minutes without a reply.

Automatically add reminders about critical customer details

Individual customers often have important details your team needs to be aware of whenever they’re interfacing with them.

For example, imagine you’re a major freight carrier or 3PL provider and have a particular shipper/receiver who restricts certain types of drivers from their facility. You can use rules to automatically add reminders as comments to email exchanges involving that customer’s domain address (e.g., *@acme.com).

Adding comments to Gmail from a mobile device

You can also add comments, tasks, and attachments using the mobile app for iOS or Android. Handy for leaving context on a thread while you’re away from your desk.

The shortest answer

Gmail was built for one-person inboxes, not for teams working shared addresses. If you’re doing real collaboration (adding private comments, assigning conversations, drafting replies together, tracking who’s handling what), native Gmail will always feel like a workaround. A shared inbox tool like Missive sits on top of your existing Gmail account so nothing changes about your email address or your server. Your team just gets the collaboration layer Gmail doesn’t have. Tasks work for leaving notes for yourself on private emails, but the minute you need someone else’s input, you’re back to forwarding and CC’ing. That’s the gap the third-party option fills. Email overload gets a lot lighter when you don’t have to hop on Zoom for every quick question.

FAQ

What’s the difference between Gmail notes and Google Keep?

Gmail doesn’t have a dedicated notes feature, so “Gmail notes” usually refers to workarounds like Google Tasks, drafts, or inline quote replies. Google Keep is Google’s standalone note-taking app, which can be accessed from the Gmail sidebar to keep notes alongside your inbox. Neither lets you share a note attached to a specific email with a teammate.

Can I export notes from Gmail?

There is no official way to export Gmail notes in bulk without copy/pasting them individually. It’s possible via third-party add-ons, but Google doesn’t support this natively.

Can I share Gmail notes with my team?

Not natively. Google Tasks and Google Keep both keep notes private to the person who created them. To share notes on an email with your team, you either have to forward the email or use a tool like Missive that lets multiple people comment on the same email without forwarding.

What’s the best way to add notes to emails in a team setting?

Use a collaborative email client. Missive lets you add private comments or team comments to any email (from Gmail, Outlook, or any other provider), assign the conversation to a teammate, and turn comments into tasks with deadlines. Everything stays attached to the email itself, so context doesn’t get lost in chat or forwards.

Does Gmail have AI features for adding notes?

Gmail has Gemini-based AI features for drafting and summarizing emails, but nothing purpose-built for adding notes. If you want AI that reads an email and auto-adds context (like urgency flags or summary notes), you’ll need a tool like Missive with AI rules.