How to Add a Strikethrough Text in Gmail

Gmail doesn’t provide any strikethrough text formatting option as of 2018.

We go through several options about how to add a strikethrough to your email messages.

Keep in mind that the Gmail’s compose window should not be in “Plain Text Mode” for any formatting option to work.

Keyboard ShortCut – HotKey Method

This is the most straightforward way of adding a strikethrough to text in Gmail.

  1. Select the text that you want to apply strikethrough
  2. Click on the keyboard shortcut ALT+SHIFT+5 – (Use the number “5” in the top row of your keyboard, not the one on the numeric pad)

When you release the buttons, the text will be formatted with strikethrough. If you want to remove it, just click ALT+SHIFT+5 once more.

I have tested this shortcut method on Chrome, IE edge, Opera and Firefox, and it worked on all browsers without any problem.

You can also add a strikethrough to any text on google docs or google sheets using this hotkey method.

You can find all shortcuts for PC, Mac and Chrome OS here:

For Mac, use the shortcut CMD+SHIFT+X to add a strikethrough to your text.

Copy-Paste Method

This method can be used for any application that doesn’t support strikethrough formatting.

The method is pretty simple. Open Microsoft Word or Google Doc, copy & paste the strikethrough text to the application that doesn’t support it, in this case, Gmail.

For this tutorial, we use copy strikethrough text from a Google Doc.

  1. Copy a strikethrough text from Google Doc
  2. Paste it to the Gmail message

One disadvantage of this method is that when you paste the copied text to Gmail, you notice that font and any other formatting is also carried into the Gmail message. To fix that, do not apply any other formatting in Google Doc or Microsoft Word and just re-apply the current font that you use in your Gmail message to the strikethrough text.

After you are done with strikethrough text, use the “Remove Formatting” button to end any further strikethrough formatting.

Gmail Strikethrough Text Example

Extensions

If you still prefer to have a strikethrough button on Gmail’s compose window, check out these extensions.

StrikeThrough for Gmail” is a light-weight extension that adds a strikethrough button to Gmail’s new message window. It also
binds the keyboard shortcut, CTRL+SHIFT+S, to strikethrough formatting.

Chrome Extension For Strikethrough Text

There is also a Firefox extension called “strikeThrough“, but it is not compatible with the latest version of Firefox and has not been updated since 2015.

Other Methods

There are other options like inspecting the page HTML and adding a <strike> tag to the text or adding a script to the browser, but I’ve not included those as they are really not very practical for most users.

How to Add StrikeThrough to Subject Line

You can’t add styling to the email subject line, but there is a tool that converts your text to a strikethrough plain text format, which you can use not only in Gmail’s subject line but in other social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter.

This nice little tool also allows you to create the text in many other formats like cross-hatched, struck-through, waved, dotted or underlined text.

How to Add Strikethrough Text For Gmail's Subject Line