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Basically I want to strike through some text; how can I do this?

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  • 2
    There use to be a Greasemonkey script that added button for this, but Google broke it when they updated Gmail. Not sure if there are any that work now.
    – endolith
    Commented Feb 20, 2015 at 19:56
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    There is script: userscripts-mirror.org/scripts/show/57725. Tested working.
    – Artem P
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 14:13
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    Note to Googlers: Ignore the top answers and just use Alt + Shift + 5 instead.
    – Pikamander2
    Commented Oct 22, 2018 at 7:12
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    Or cmd + shift + x for Mac users @Pikamander2
    – Hazel T
    Commented Jan 24, 2019 at 0:24

10 Answers 10

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235

Ok, I have discovered a simple way. Copy this text and paste into your e-mail. Edit the text. Voila!

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  • 13
    The only bummer is this also carries over the color and font. I've found the extension @GHelper posted to work much better as it just adds a button to the text formatting toolbar in Gmail.
    – Mike Branski
    Commented Feb 25, 2015 at 16:12
  • 3
    After pasting the text, select it and hit Ctrl-Shift-- (Ctrl-Shift-Minus) to shrink it down to Gmail's default font.
    – ladenedge
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 13:33
  • it doesn't work for me (FF)
    – Ooker
    Commented Jan 2, 2016 at 18:55
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    haha, you made my day the craziest and most efficient answer ever
    – Alain
    Commented Jan 24, 2017 at 21:47
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    @Michael - If you've already written a bunch of text, you can paste with ctrl-shft-V to paste while maintaining the style of the text you're pasting into.
    – JoeM05
    Commented Apr 21, 2017 at 17:42
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This may not be for everyone (I work in web development), and it's slow, but if you use Chrome or Chromium you can edit the HTML directly and it works fine.

  1. Right-click on the text you want to strike out
  2. Choose 'inspect element'
  3. The inspector will bring up that text - right click on it and choose 'edit html'
  4. Wrap the text you want to strike out with <strike>text</strike>

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    The third step is important. Editing the tag element with that text and adding the <strike>text</strike> there results in <strike>text</strike> being the text in the email (tags visible, without the formatting), and the HTML for it is &lt;strike&gt;text&lt;/strike&gt;.
    – jvriesem
    Commented Apr 24, 2015 at 21:56
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    Such a great answer. This should be the accepted one!
    – Aseem Kishore
    Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 20:55
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    alternatively you can add text-decoration: line-through; to the elements style using the dev tools
    – Ben
    Commented Oct 31, 2016 at 15:25
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    Use <s>: the current version of the obsolete <strike>. (<del> should be used exactly for deletions from documents, as in a diff; that is something you would usually not format manually. (@jaepage))
    – Aaron Thoma
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 19:01
  • This technique works (I used the <s> form suggested by @AaronThoma) and TBH it's more memorable than Google Sheets' Option-Shift-5 or Google Docs' Cmd-Shift-X, neither of which works in Gmail.
    – Jerry101
    Commented Oct 6, 2017 at 23:48
68

While this is a very old query, I have found a nifty way to work on it, thus posting it as a solution.

There is a shortcut Alt+Shift+5 to toggle the strike-through. Select the text to strike through, click once Alt+Shift+5 the text is stroked, click once more the text is back to normal.

For Mac: Cmd+Shift+x

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    Wow, you made my day ! Works perfectly on Chrome. And yes, this should be the accepted answer. Thx !
    – JYL
    Commented Oct 22, 2018 at 15:10
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    This is the answer, glad I scrolled down, thanks! Works in all browsers I've tried, seems to be an undocumented gmail feature. Looks like gmail uses the same editor as docs, and that shift+alt+5 is a google docs feature.
    – Some_Guy
    Commented Nov 9, 2018 at 16:48
  • for me it replaced the text with "fi"
    – inquisitive
    Commented Dec 11, 2018 at 9:48
  • Confirmed for Firefox on MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6 - definitely the correct answer.
    – Jayx
    Commented Jan 16, 2019 at 15:21
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Personally, I type emails that need more formatting options in the CKeditor demo. Then, I copy the final text into Gmail - the formatting is retained.

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    Hehh, a smart, instant, minimalist idea, +1! :) (It's kind of unfair use of that demo, though, if I'd go by Kantian ethics... ;-o )
    – lunakid
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 8:14
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    Yeah, someone should definitely write a userscript or extension to replace Google's Inbox and Gmail textareas with CKeditor...
    – Timothy Zorn
    Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 9:26
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There is no native way to do it, so you either do it in Word (or any other text editor that supports it) and then copy/paste the text in the compose window or you install a browser add-on.

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  • "or you install a browser add-on" ... such as?
    – endolith
    Commented Feb 20, 2015 at 19:57
  • @endolith such as StrikeThrough for Gmail. (Disclaimer: I haven’t used it.)
    – Alex
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 7:18
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    StrikeThrough for Gmail is long defunct according to its reviews. ( @Alex )
    – Aaron Thoma
    Commented Aug 6, 2017 at 16:16
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On Mac in Google Chrome, select the text, and hit Cmd-Shift-x.

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As of January 2019, you can use new Formatting options - Strikethrough (Alt-Shift-5): enter image description here

Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2019/01/new-gmail-compose-formatting-and-download-options.html

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3

I thought it would be clever to create a bookmarklet in Chrome that would modify the style of selected text using JavaScript.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get that to work, but if you're familiar with the console, you can paste this line into it to strikethrough any selected text:

window.getSelection().anchorNode.parentNode.style.textDecoration = "line-through"

To get to the console, you can right click anywhere in the HTML document of the Chrome Browser and choose "Inspect Element," or you can press "option / command / J" at the same time on a Mac machine.

F12 or "control - shift - J" opens up the console on PCs.

Once you've done this, the console will remember your command, and you can press the up arrow to cycle through past console commands. When you return to this particular one, just press enter again to apply it.

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January 22nd 2019, Google announced:

We're adding three new features to Gmail:

  • Shortcut to undo/redo in the compose window
  • Shortcut to strikethrough text
  • Ability to download messages as .EML files in rfc822 format from Gmail on the web

from New Gmail compose formatting and download options in the official G Suite Updates blog.

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Command (or Ctrl) + Shift + X.

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  • On what OS/browsers have you tested this? This doesn't work for me on Chrome/Windows.
    – MrWhite
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 20:06
  • Chrome on Mac OS. Just tested again and it is working. Make sure you select the text before hitting Cmd + Shift + X.
    – Izaias
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 21:07

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