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How to delete all emails in Gmail
Gmail’s generous storage quota means that it’s rarely necessary to delete any emails. But there may still be times when you want to mass-delete emails, whether it’s personal emails from someone you’ve just broken up with or if you’re really hitting your storage limit. Here’s a quick and easy guide on deleting all emails in Gmail.
QUICK ANSWER
You can delete all emails in Gmail, but this is not yet possible from the mobile app. You'll need to access Gmail from a desktop browser to easily wipe your inbox clean.
Go to Gmail.com and log into your account. From your Inbox section, click on the select checkbox up top to select all. This will only select all the emails on the first page. A message will show up on top, allowing you to Select all X conversations in X. Click on it, then select the Delete trash icon. Repeat the same process for the other folders if you have multiple.
How to mass-delete emails in Gmail
It should be noted that deleting large volumes of email in the Gmail mobile app currently isn’t possible. You would have to delete the emails individually by swiping each one into the Trash. If you have a lot of emails, that would be very tedious and time-consuming. So it’s highly recommended you do this on a desktop browser.
The process is actually pretty simple; just be sure you actually want to do this. We advise you to download your emails, just in case you delete something important.
If you’re ready, all you have to do is go to Gmail.com and log into your Google account. Once in your Inbox, tap on the Select All button, which looks like a checkbox. This will only select the emails you can see on the first page. A new option will show up. It will read something like Select all X conversations in X section. Once you’ve selected them all, hit the Delete trash icon to delete all your emails. Follow the same steps in different Gmail category labels.
Step-by-Step instructions:
- Go to Gmail.com.
- Once in your Inbox, hit the Select All checkbox option.
- This will only select the emails visible on the first page.
- To select all emails, click on the new option that reads Select all X conversations in X.
- Once all emails are selected, hit the Delete trash icon.
- Repeat the process for each email category tab if you use these.
This method will work with whatever your Inbox is showing. This means you can filter the Gmail emails you want to delete. If you only want to delete emails that match specific search conditions, enter your search strings in the Gmail search bar and click Search. Then you can select them all the same way we showed you above and delete all those emails in a single sweep.
Everything will now be moved to the Trash folder, so bringing the emails back is easy. Just go to Trash, select all the emails you want to restore, click the Move icon (folder with arrow), and select Inbox or any folder you want.
Gmail automatically empties its trash after 30 days, and the emails are permanently deleted. Don’t procrastinate for too long.
FAQs
If the emails are in Trash, and it’s within 30 days of them being sent there, you can easily recover them. If you emptied the Trash, or it’s been longer than 30 days, the emails are gone forever.
No, it doesn’t. The spam folder is completely separate. You can go in there and delete those emails separately.
It’s certainly possible to delete all emails in Gmail using the mobile app, but it will be a long process if you have been storing those emails for a long time. In the mobile app, you have to select emails one by one. There is no way to select them all and delete them all at once.