How to Compose a New Email in Gmail (C)

Pressing C from anywhere within Gmail — the inbox list view, an open email, or any other section — opens a brand-new compose window ready for a subject line and message body, without needing to click the Compose button in the top-left corner of the interface. **Where the compose window appears**: by default, Gmail opens compose as a small window docked to the bottom-right of the browser tab, which can be expanded to a larger pop-out window or full-screen mode using the small icons in the compose window's top-right corner — the keyboard shortcut itself doesn't control which of these display modes opens, only that compose starts, and Gmail generally remembers whichever size you last used for the next time you compose. **What happens if you already have a compose window open**: pressing C again while one compose window is already active opens a second, independent compose window rather than replacing or adding to the first, letting you draft two separate emails in parallel — useful for jotting down the start of a second message while finishing up the first one, though juggling more than two active drafts at once tends to get visually cluttered on a typical screen, since each additional compose window stacks along the bottom of the browser tab. **Composing versus replying**: C always starts a completely blank message with no pre-filled recipient or subject, distinct from R (reply) or F (forward), both of which pre-populate content from whatever email is currently open or focused — reaching for C when you actually meant to reply to an existing thread creates an unrelated new conversation instead of continuing the existing one, which loses the original thread's context and can genuinely confuse a recipient trying to follow an ongoing conversation, so it's worth being deliberate about which of the three you actually need before pressing anything. **Auto-save behavior**: Gmail saves an in-progress compose draft automatically and continuously as you type, storing it in the Drafts folder (reachable via G then D) even if you close the compose window or the browser tab without explicitly sending — there's no dedicated "save draft" shortcut because the saving happens continuously in the background without requiring a manual trigger, and a half-finished message from days ago is still sitting in Drafts exactly where you left it. **Related shortcuts**: once inside the compose window, Ctrl+K (Cmd+K) inserts a link, and Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Return) sends the message directly from the keyboard without needing to click Send, completing an entirely keyboard-driven path from opening a blank message through finishing and sending it. **Alternative methods**: clicking the Compose button (typically a pencil icon or a labeled button in the top-left of the Gmail interface) achieves the identical result as pressing C, just requiring a mouse movement first — functionally there's no difference in what gets created either way, and which one you reach for is purely a matter of whichever is faster given where your hands already are. **Mistake to avoid**: pressing C while your cursor is inside an active compose window or another text field can sometimes type a literal "c" character into that field instead of triggering the shortcut, since Gmail's single-letter shortcuts only fire when focus is on the main list or message view rather than inside a text input — if C doesn't seem to be working, check whether a cursor is still blinking somewhere unexpected first, such as inside a search box or an already-open compose window's subject line. **Worth knowing for anyone composing frequently**: because Gmail supports multiple simultaneous compose windows, a common workflow is starting a new message with C, realizing partway through that a piece of information from another email is needed, and simply navigating the main list in the background (using J/K) to look it up without losing the in-progress draft — the compose window stays open and preserved in the background the entire time, ready to return to exactly where you left off.