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How to mass-delete all your emails on Gmail at once

Knowing how to mass-delete all your emails in Gmail is a great way to keep your inbox tidy and easily readable. It also helps maximize your storage space by clearing out old emails, spam, and conversations you no longer need a record of.

Here are the best ways to mass-delete your emails in Gmail to clean out your inbox.

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

  • Computer, tablet, or phone with web access

How to mass-delete all your emails on Gmail at once

Step 1: The first step is to open Gmail in your web browser and log in to your account.

Step 2: At the top, on the left of the refresh button, you will see a box with an arrow next to it. Click on the box to select all the emails. However, clicking the box will only select all the emails from the current page you’re on. For mass deleting all your emails, click on the option that says Select all conversations in Primary. You will find this option in a bar right under the selection box.

how to mass delete emails on gmail select
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 3: The last step is to click on the trash can icon once you’ve selected all your emails. It's situated in the same bar as the selection box and the refresh icon.

How to bulk delete Gmail by date range

Gmail also has the option to bulk delete emails by date range. With this feature, you can choose two dates and delete all emails between the specified time period. Here's how to do it.

Step 1: Select the Gmail search box at the top of the page and enter your date range. You do this by using the advanced search operators "before:'" and "after:" with your date entered in YYYY/M/D format. So if you're trying to delete emails between May 1 and December 1, you would enter "before: 2021/5/1 after: 2021/12/1."

how to mass delete emails on gmail step 1 sec 2
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 2: Select all the emails using the checkboxes, and press the delete key, or the trash icon to remove them. To remove more than the 50 shown on the first page, click on the option that says Select all conversations in Primary. You will find this option in a bar right under the selection box.

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Dua Rashid
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dua is a media studies graduate student at The New School. She has been hooked on technology since she was a kid and used to…
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