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Is there a keyboard shortcut to delete a reply draft in a conversation thread? This is not about deleting conversations. The shortcut for that is # (Shift+3). This is about deleting an editable reply/reply-all/forward in a conversation thread.

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    You can use tab to get from the edit field down into the buttons below the message. A few taps and you'll be on "Discard Draft". Then just hit Enter.
    – ale
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 10:21
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    That's true, but it requires 9 taps to get there! Looking for a more efficient solution than that...
    – Michael Sinanian
    Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 14:31
  • That's as close as I've found (and why I didn't offer it as an answer). Unfortunately, the majority of keyboard shortcuts don't work when the editing field is active.
    – ale
    Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 22:53

3 Answers 3

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Late update, but if anyone stumbles upon this thread: google has added a shortcut to "discard draft" since this question was asked/answered:

  • windows: <Ctrl> + <Shift> + d
  • macos: <⌘> + <Shift> + d (Cmd + Shift + d, Command + Shift + d )

Note: This can be especially infuriating when drafting a lengthy message on a mac as <⌘> + <Ctrl> + d (macos shortcut to display the definition of a highlighted word) can easily be fat fingered as <⌘> + <Shift> + d and wipe out everything you've been working on with no way to get it back. Anyone encountering this will wonder why google does not at least make discarded draft items go into the trash to provide a chance for recovery.

List item

As Ruben mentioned, you can hit ? from within gmail to display your keyboard shortcut options.

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    Even worse - command+shift+D is the Mail.app shortcut to send a mail, which is firmly implanted in my muscle memory. And there's no confirmation dialog in gmail when discarding. And there doesn't seem to be a way to disable it - you can't reassign the shortcut in gmail, and if I reassign it in Chrome, gmail somehow manages to override it when composing a mail. Unbelievable! I've definitely lost mails this way, without realizing it at the time, and now I have no idea how many or which.
    – CupawnTae
    Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 8:43
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I was about to write a Chrome extension for this purpose. Then I stumbled upon Shortkeys. It's a neat little extension allowing us to bind key combinations to various actions, including running JavaScript code.

You could create a new rule, and add a script as such: 

console.log("magic in progress");
var e = document.querySelectorAll("div[aria-label='Discard draft']")
for(var i=0;i<e.length;i++){
   e[i].click();
}

Screenshot

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At this time, there isn't. To display the list of shortcuts, straight from the Gmail screen, on any Gmail page, press ?.

The shortcuts related to drafts, are the following:

Key shortcut: g then d
Definition: Go to 'Drafts'
Action: Takes you to all drafts you have saved.

Key shortcuts:
- Ctrl + s
- Mac: ⌘ + s
Definition: Save draft
Action: Saves the current text as a draft when composing a message. Hold the Ctrl/⌘ key while pressing s and make sure your cursor is in one of the text fields -- either the composition pane, or any of the To, CC, BCC, or Subject fields -- when using this shortcut.

References
Keyboards shortcuts for Gmail - Gmail Help

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