How to Hide Gmail Smart Replies on Your Desktop or Laptop
Gmail’s Smart Replies feature, now built into the latest desktop client design update , is a great way to send meaningful replies when you don’t feel like typing the real one. Of course, they can annoy recipients; and you might even hit the wrong answer by inadvertently telling your boss, “ Love this! When he or she asks you to do extra work this weekend. But aren’t they comfortable?
If you’re not a fan of smart answers – so much so that you can’t wait to see Google let you get rid of them entirely from your desktop – you can use this quick trick to hide them permanently.
First download Ublock Origin for your browser ( Chrome , Firefox , Safari , Edge ). Will wait. After installing it, open Gmail . Make sure Ublock Origin is enabled for Gmail (your browser toolbar icon should be red, not gray) and click on messages in your Inbox until you see a message with Gmails smart replies. It will look like this:
Slightly right-click to the right of the last smart answer and select the Block Item option from the context menu. It will look like this:
When you do this, a large red overlay should appear containing smart answers. If not, click on what’s highlighted and then hover over smart responses until you see something like this (then click to lock in your choice):
Once locked (your mouse cursor should have a circle with a line running through it), move your cursor to the right until it activates the gray UBlock Origin overlay – for lack of a better way to describe it:
Click New to set up a new filtering rule, then refresh Gmail in your browser. You should no longer see smart replies to any messages. If for any reason you miss them, just open your Ublock Origin options (usually by right-clicking on the Ublock Origin icon in your browser toolbar) and go to the My Filters tab. Delete the entry for “mail.google.com”, hit “Apply Changes” and your smart replies should come back.