How do I turn off conversation view in Gmail?

Last reviewed: October 20, 2026 · Markdown version

It is one setting on each device. On a computer: Settings, See all settings, then the "Conversation View" section, where you pick Conversation view off and click Save Changes (Group emails into conversations, read 20 October 2026). Google sums up the choice as "whether replies to emails are grouped in conversations, or if each email shows up in your inbox separately." The phone apps have their own switch, set separately, so turning it off in a browser does not change your phone.

On Android

The Android steps are per account: open the Gmail app, tap Menu, then Settings, "Tap your account address", and under "General," check or uncheck Conversation view (Group emails into conversations (Android), read 20 October 2026). With two Gmail addresses in the app you set it twice. Non-Gmail accounts added to the app have a different switch, under General settings, named Email conversation view.

On iPhone and iPad

The setting lives with the inbox options rather than the account: Menu, Settings, then under "Inbox", tap Inbox customizations and turn Conversation view on or off (Group emails into conversations (iPhone & iPad), read 20 October 2026).

What turning it off changes

Every reply becomes its own row. With grouping on, replies stack "with the latest email at the bottom of a conversation thread". Off, a busy thread fills your list one message at a time.
Labels stick to single messages. Google's labels page: "If you turn off the conversation view, labels appear only on the specific messages that you label." With it on, "the label applies only to the existing messages, not to new replies" (Create & manage labels in Gmail, read 20 October 2026). Neither mode labels the future for you; a filter does that.
Reply nudges go. Google says the suggestions at the top of the inbox for mail to reply to or follow up on can be hidden this way: "To hide nudges, turn off conversation view." If nudges are what bother you, this is the documented off switch.
Deleting one message gets simpler. With grouping on, removing a single email from a thread is a separate step, More then Delete this message, and Google notes that "To group messages together as a conversation, turn on conversation view" (Delete messages in Gmail, read 20 October 2026). With it off, each email is already its own item to tick.

When a thread is grouped that should not be

Sometimes the complaint is not conversations in general but one bundle of unrelated alerts. Google explains that automated emails are grouped when they share "The same recipients, senders, or subjects as a previous message", carry "A reference header with the same IDs", and were "Sent within one week of a previous message" (the Group emails into conversations page above). That is a sender-side setup, and the fixes Google gives are addressed to whoever runs the sending system. As a reader, you either live with the bundle or turn grouping off. Even with grouping on, a conversation "breaks off into a new conversation when the subject line changes, or the conversation gets to more than 100 emails."

A quieter alternative

If one long thread is the problem rather than grouping itself, muting it may be the smaller change. Google's mute page says that after you mute, "the replies you receive skip your inbox and go directly to your archive" (Mute Gmail messages, read 20 October 2026), so the thread stays grouped and stays out of the way. Muting a conversation has the steps and the limits.