It doesn’t take long for your inbox to fill up with so many emails that it can be hard to find them. An overflowing inbox can even use up all of your storage space. Gmail offers several ways to quickly delete entire inboxes or select content by label or from a specific sender. We show you how to use these tools to delete all messages in Gmail.
Of course, before you start any of these processes, make sure to back up any important emails you need. Google has a dedicated site that allows you to download your data.
How to Delete a Gmail Inbox
Gmail has several inboxes by default. These include “Main,” “Social,” “Promotions,” “Updates,” and “Forums.” It’s possible to delete all the content in each of them individually, and it only takes a few clicks.
Log in to your Gmail account in a web browser, select the inbox you want to empty, then click the checkbox in the upper-left corner, just above “Primary.”
The main body of the emails should now be highlighted in blue, with checkmarks to the left of their senders. If you delete them now, you’ll only delete the first 50, so you need another method to clean out your inbox.
Just above the “Updates” tab, you’ll see a message like “Select all 1,447 conversations in updates,” depending on which inbox you’re emptying and how many emails it contains.
Click on it and all the messages in that inbox will be selected. Now go to the “Delete” icon in the line above the message and click on it to send all the emails.
Now, and this is a crucial part, you need to go to the “Trash” or “Bin” folder and empty it. Otherwise, the messages you just deleted will still be there. This is a safety net that keeps deleted messages for 30 days in case you make a mistake.
You’ll find the folder in the left column, but you may need to click the “More” link. You can also use the search box and type “in:trash” to view the contents of the folder.
On a mobile device
- Open the Gmail app on your mobile device.
- Tap the three horizontal lines (hamburger menu) in the upper left corner to open the sidebar.
- Select the inbox (primary, social, promotions, updates, forums) you want to empty.
- Long press on any email to start selecting emails. A checkbox will appear next to each email.
- Tap the checkbox icon at the top to select all emails in the visible list. To select all emails in the inbox, you may need to scroll down and select them in batches.
- Once selected, tap the trash icon to delete the emails.
- Go back to the sidebar, scroll down and tap “Trash”.
- In the Trash, tap “Empty Trash Now” or “Empty Trash Now” to permanently delete the emails.
How to delete all emails from a certain person
You don’t have to empty an entire inbox if you just want to get rid of messages from a particular contact. To do so, enter the contact’s email address into the search bar at the top of the page.
Next, click the checkbox just below the search bar so that all emails turn blue. Click the message that says “Select all conversations that match this search,” then navigate to the “Delete” icon and click it to delete all highlighted content.
On a mobile device
- Open the Gmail app and enter the contact’s email address in the search bar at the top.
- Press and hold one of the emails to start selecting.
- Tap the checkbox icon at the top to select all visible emails.
- Tap the trash icon to delete the selected emails.
How to delete emails with a label
Labels are a very convenient way to group emails by subject, sender, or any other differentiator you deem necessary. They also make it very easy to delete entire collections of messages in a few quick steps.
To do this, click on one of the labels you’ve set up in the left column of Gmail. Then, simply click the checkbox in the upper-left corner, then click the delete icon.
You can use a similar process to delete all unread emails (use the search bar and type “is:unread”).
On a mobile device
- Open the Gmail app, then tap the hamburger menu in the upper-left corner.
- Scroll down and tap the label you want to manage.
- Press and hold one of the emails to start selecting.
- Tap the checkbox icon to select all emails visible under that label.
- Tap the trash icon to delete the selected emails.
How to Find Emails with Large Attachments in Gmail
If you’re approaching your storage limit, you’ll see a warning at the top of the interface when you view Gmail in a web browser.
To free up storage space, you need to look for emails with large attachments. To do this, start by using the search box and entering “larger:10MB”. This will return all emails that are larger than 10MB. If you want to search for smaller attachments, use “size:1000000”. This is 1MB, expressed in bytes (1 million bytes).
On a mobile device
- Open the Gmail app and tap the search bar.
- Enter “larger:10MB” to search for emails larger than 10MB.
- Tap an email to open it, then delete it if it’s no longer needed.
For more ways to get the most out of your email service, try reading our guides on how to recall an email in Gmail and how to block someone on Gmail.
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