Why you should set "Reply All" as your default for managing your email.

Recently, a subscriber asked us if there was a way in Gmail to show both the Reply and Reply All buttons when replying to an email (so you know, there isn't). However, you can change the default reply behaviour from "Reply" to "Reply All", and we recommend you do this.

Why you should set "Reply All" as your default response.

Whenever you receive an email, it will either be a one-to-one conversation or a group conversation. The reply-all button will send your response to everyone in the group, even in that email group is a simple one-to-one discussion. 

There will be times when you have received a group conversation and have hit the reply button only to realise later you only replied to the sender of the email and not everyone else involved in the conversation. You then have to resend the email to the group, awkwardly adding an extra email to the conversation, which could have been avoided if "reply all" was set as your default. 

When you have "Reply All" set as your default action in your email, you won't miss anyone involved in the conversation; they will all get your email. 

Better still, before you hit the send button, you can also remove people from the email who you think don't need to see your response, and they can also use Gmail's mute function if they no longer want to be alerted to future emails. Suppose you opt to use the "Reply" button. In that case, you have to check to ensure everyone gets included that needs to be - which is a longer process than removing people already involved in the ongoing email discussion.

So by flicking your settings in Gmail to default to "Reply All", you will be saving yourself time while making sure no one misses out on your response.