A saved view is a named filter you can return to instantly — for example, “Unread from work” or “Flagged in the last 7 days.”
Open the View Manager from the View menu or the command palette. Create a view by choosing a folder (or All Inboxes), a message filter, and optionally a date limit. Assign a hotkey to jump to it directly.
Press the assigned hotkey from anywhere in the main window to switch to that view immediately.
A view is a temporary overlay, not a change to your settings. Clear View — on the View → Views menu and in the command palette — puts everything back the way the folder was: grouping, filter, sort, and any date limit the view applied. Nothing a view does is kept once you leave it. (If the view spans several folders, clearing it returns you to All Mail, since the folders themselves were the view.)
You can also just change something. Adjusting the view mode, filter, or sort while a view is active leaves the view — the title stops showing its name — and what you chose becomes that folder’s own setting.
Only what you changed comes with you. If you are in “Flagged this week” and you change the sort, you leave the view with your new sort and the folder back to its usual self — you are not left quietly filtered to flagged messages from the last seven days. The saved view itself is never altered; press its hotkey again to go back to it.