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In vanilla Gmail, clicking on a conversation alters the fragment ID in the URL, allowing you to link back to that conversation. (It opens in its own Gmail interface.) I am using the preview pane, which is great, except that the URL no longer updates when viewing specific emails, so there appears to be no way to get the link to the currently-viewed conversation. (The 'open in new window' button doesn't help, since it pulls its contents in on the client side; it isn't a standalone link.)

The only solution I've found is to turn off the preview pane, find the message again in the list, open it, grab the link, go back to the message list, and turn preview pane back on. That's fairly onerous for something I do often though (to clip Gmail conversations to Evernote, where my GTD setup lives).

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  • 2
    This is a terrible limitation of the preview pane interface. Oct 25, 2014 at 16:15

6 Answers 6

4

This is a major kludge, but will do the trick. First install the bookmarklet from this answer.

javascript:window.location="https://gmail.com/#search/rfc822msgid:"+encodeURIComponent(window.document.body.innerHTML.match(/Message-ID: <(.*)>/)[1])+"/"+encodeURIComponent(window.location.search.toString().slice(1).split('&').filter(function(x){return x.slice(0,3) == "th="})[0].slice(3));

Then follow these instructions.

  1. Click the menu button to the right of the message's "reply-to" button and select Show original. enter image description here
  2. After the message's raw source is shown on a new tab (it will resemble the below screenshot), click the bookmarklet.

    enter image description here
  3. A new tab will now open with the regualrly formatted message. You can now bookmark or copy the message's URL.
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  • 1
    Ungh. I suppose that is moderately better! What I ended up doing though was installing Powerbot to link gmail to evernote. Gives a bit more flexibility than using the web clipper anyway, and at $10/year it would probably be worthwhile to me even if it didn't work around this issue (which it does). Only helps if you're using Evernote of course. Oct 26, 2014 at 2:20
  • I still find monospace viscerally comforting, like my uncle's pipe smoke, the sound of a teletype, or Soviet era nuclear memorabilia.
    – Bob Stein
    May 14, 2015 at 15:13
  • No longer works. Gmail changed something on us, again.
    – bgoodr
    Feb 25, 2018 at 18:03
4

press Shift+T (or More → Add to Tasks), it will create a task in Google Tasks *.

Task will include hyperlnk to mail thread in "All mail" label, so it will work no matter where thread currently is (if you copy plain link from Inbox, it won't open if thread is archived afterwards for example).

gmail thread hyperlink example

Though you cannot copy this link right from tasks, you can click it, and it will appear in addressbar even if you have split pane on (if I understand correctly, you meant split pane, not preview one, right? Maybe also it has been renamed some time ago.).

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With the new version of gmail you can toggle the preview pane mode on or off. You can find the button in the top right corner.

Toggle preview pane

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  • That's a bit easier than going through settings, but you still need to find the message again once you toggle it. What would be ideal is if gmail updated the url to track the currently selected message, even when using the preview pane. Jul 18, 2018 at 17:10
0

This is a corrected code for glenviewjeff's answer but I'm not allowed to comment on it.

Desciption

Get the e-mail link with a bookmarklet.

Installation

Create a bookmark with the url below

javascript:window.open("https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/rfc822msgid%3A" + encodeURIComponent(document.getElementsByClassName('message_id')[0].innerHTML.slice(4, -4)), "_self");

Usage

  1. Open the original message (see image below)
  2. Click on the bookmark

Result

After clicking the bookmark you will see gmail with one conversation. Open the conversation and the message you are looking for will be expanded while the other messages are collapsed.

Opening original message

original message

Changes

13-08-2018 I updated the code to work again.

0

The bookmarklet works fine, but kind of slow. I have a faster way for 2021

  1. enable keyboard shortcuts in gmail settings
  2. Shti + T to add to tasks
  3. point to the newly created task and click the EDIT button (pencil icon)
  4. right click on email link under "add subtask" and it lets you grab its URL
  5. press delete button at the top

all 4 or 5 clicks, about the same as a bookmarklet, but that URL loads faster because it is not a "search message-id URL" but a direct to message

-1

Here is a Chrome extension that does exactly this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmail-message-url/bkdmmijcdflpcjchjglegcipjiabagei

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