Knowing how to delete all emails in Gmail will allow you to have a fresh start with your email account, whether it's full or if you just want a clear-out. Though free webmail services don't restrict storage space as much as they did in the early years, clearing your inbox can still come in handy for a number of reasons.
Maybe your inbox has become cluttered over the years, or maybe you've archived all your emails offline and want to clear up some web space. Whatever the reason, it's a relatively simple task to start afresh in Gmail. Here's our guide on how to delete all emails in Gmail.
1. Select the category of email you want to delete
Gmail segments email into Primary, Social and Promotions categories.
The easiest way to delete all emails in Gmail is to tackle each category one by one, and I’m going to demonstrate with the “Promotions” segment for the purposes of this tutorial. Select the tab you want to clear with a click.
2. Press the tick box to select all
Nestled between the search bar and the tab selection is a small tick box highlighted above. Tick it, and every email on the page will be selected. But if you have more than 50 emails to delete, that won’t get everything, so we'll deal with that in our next step.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)3. Add in the emails not displayed on the page
Once you press the tick box, everything on the page (aside from the inbox ads) will be selected, but an easily missable text will also appear above the tab selection: “All 50 conversations on this page are selected. Select all X conversations in Promotions.” Press the second sentence and everything in the category will now be highlighted as ready for deletion.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)4. Hit the delete button
Press the fourth icon along underneath the search bar — it’s shaped like a trash bin. You’ll get a popup asking you if you’re sure you want to delete that many emails, so make your decision.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)5. Await confirmation
If you have a lot of emails, this will take a little while. I had only 3,404 to delete and it still took around 15 seconds.
As you can see below, once the process is complete, you get a little confirmation pop-up in the bottom left-hand corner. Note, too, that this doesn’t seem to have deleted everything, but a quick refresh revealed everything was really gone.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)6. Empty the trash and repeat the process for other tabs
You don’t need to do anything more, so consider this an optional step, but your deleted emails will sit in your trash folder for 30 days before Google actually deletes them.
If you want to expedite the process, you can head to the Trash folder and empty it manually. Once done, repeat steps 2-6 with the Primary and Social tabs, and your Gmail will be completely empty.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)Now you know how to delete all emails in Gmail, you might want to check out some other Gmail guides, including how to schedule an email in Gmail and how to change your password in Gmail.
If you have a cluttered Gmail inbox, you're not alone. Whether you're looking to free up some storage space or edit folders to organize your inbox, there are some shortcuts for mass-deletion.
Mass-deleting emails can be helpful for emails filed in your Social or Promotions tabs, which often pile up or get ignored. There are also shortcuts for deleting all read emails, all unread emails, and emails from specific senders. Here's how to do it all.
How to delete all read or all unread emails on Gmail
1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. In the search bar at the top of the screen, type label:read to display all read emails or label:unread to display all unread emails.
3. Click the Select all box to the left of the Refresh button. This will select all emails on the current page — up to 50 emails. To mass delete all emails in this category and not just those on the first page, you can also click Select all conversations that match this search.
You can mass delete emails with just a few clicks using this shortcut.Abigail Abesamis Demarest/Insider
4. Then click the Delete icon at the top, which is shaped like a trash can.
Quick tip: To delete all read emails from a specific sender type from:username label:read (where "username" is the sender's email address) in the search bar and follow the steps outlined above.
How to delete promotions on Gmail
Promotional emails are emails sent by companies or organizations to consumers with the general goal of selling products. These types of emails are automatically filed in your Promotions tab to keep them separate from your primary inbox.
You may get promotional emails from retailers after making a purchase on their website, or from a blog after signing up for their mailing list.
1. Log in to your Gmail account. Click on the Promotions tab at the top, above your list of emails.
2. Click the Select all box to the left of the Refresh button. This will select all promotional emails on the current page (50 emails). To delete all emails in this category, also click Select all conversations in Promotions.
Click the "Select all conversations in Promotions" button to delete all emails beyond just those on the first page.Abigail Abesamis Demarest/Insider
3. Then click the Delete icon at the top, which is shaped like a trash can.
Quick tip: If there are promotional emails you want to save, manually review your Promotions tab instead of mass-deleting, or place them in a different folder before mass-deleting.
How to recover deleted emails on Gmail
If you've accidentally deleted some emails you didn't intend to, don't fret. Deleted emails are stored in your Trash folder, where they're saved for 30 days before being permanently deleted.
1. Log in to your Gmail account. Scroll down the menu on the left side of the screen and click the Trash folder. You may need to click on More to reveal it.
2. Click on the boxes next to the emails you want to restore.
3. Click the Move to icon, which is a folder with an arrow pointing right, then select the name of the folder you want to send the emails to.
Select the emails you want to remove from Trash, and hit the "Move to:" icon to move them to another folder.Abigail Abesamis Demarest/Insider
How to permanently delete emails on Gmail
If you're deleting emails to clear up storage space and don't want to wait the 30 days for emails to be deleted from the Trash folder, you can expedite the process by permanently deleting these emails yourself.
To empty your Gmail trash:
1. Log in to your Gmail account. Scroll down the menu on the left side of the screen and click the Trash folder. You may need to click on More to reveal it.
2. Click on the boxes next to the emails you want to permanently delete.
3. Click Delete forever.
Once emails are permanently deleted, they cannot be retrieved.Abigail Abesamis Demarest/Insider
Quick tip: To permanently delete all of the emails in your Trash folder, click Empty Trash Now.
Abigail Abesamis Demarest
Abigail Abesamis Demarest is a contributing writer for Insider based in New York. She loves a good glazed donut and nerdy deep dives into the science of food and how it's made.