Have you ever wanted to silence an endless email thread? Perhaps the discussion is dragging on, or the topic may have even changed entirely. Also, contributors may start isolating certain individuals in their replies, meaning your attention is no longer required, yet you're still copied on every reply.

This is aggravating, to say the least. It's a waste of your time.

Gmail's mute feature may come in handy. When you see an endless thread in Gmail, simply hit the "m" key (or choose "Mute" from the "More Actions" drop-down) with the conversation selected:

The conversation will then archive for good. The thread will still keep growing as new replies come in, but it won't appear in your inbox again.

It's shrude, but your recipients will never know!

Specifics

It's important to understand how this feature actually works. When you "mute" a conversation, you are only silencing it if the "To" or "CC" fields do not reference your actual email address, such as with a generalized mailing list address.

This feature is not intended for silencing annoying family threads in which you are copied endlessly on. Rather, it's more geared towards forum or discussion groups, where the email address in the "To" field is a collective, group email.

Once "muted," the thread will only re-appear in your inbox if you, specifically, have been addressed in the "To" or "CC" fields. This would make sense, since you'd probably want to see messages that are directed to you.

So, despite this great idea, it doesn't seem to work for endless family threads.