How to delete all emails in Gmail

A full inbox is heavy. Thousands of unread emails, storage warnings, and the feeling that you will never catch up. Clearing it all takes about two minutes once you know where Gmail hides the button.

Delete everything in your inbox

1. Open Gmail in a web browser.
2. Click Inbox on the left.
3. Tick the box at the top left of the list.
4. Click Select all conversations in Primary (or in Inbox) in the line that appears above the list.
5. Click the trash icon and confirm.

If you use inbox tabs, repeat this in Promotions, Social and Updates, or search in:inbox first so one pass covers every tab.

Delete everything older than a date

Most people do not want to lose last week. Search for the old mail instead:

• in:inbox older_than:1y for anything more than a year old
• in:inbox before:2026/01/01 for anything before a date

Then tick the top box, click Select all conversations that match this search, and delete or archive.

Think about archive first

Delete removes the email. Archive takes it out of your inbox and keeps it in All Mail, where search still finds it. If you are clearing an inbox to feel in control, archive does the job and you lose nothing.

Free the storage

Deleted email stays in Trash for 30 days and still counts toward your Google storage. Open Trash and click Empty Trash now if you need the space today.

How to do this in Perfect Mail

Most people who want to "delete everything" want a clean inbox, not lost mail. Perfect Mail does that in one step.

Open Settings, choose Mass archive, and pick a date under Archive everything before. Perfect Mail tells you about how many emails that is. Click Review archive, confirm, and it runs in the background while you keep working. Everything it moves stays in Done (All mail in Gmail), so search still finds it.

New accounts with a big inbox get the same offer when they first sign in: Want a clean start? Pick a date and click Archive older mail.

For a smaller batch, open Emails, tick the box on a row (or press X), and Shift-click to pick a run. Click Select all to take every email in the list, then Done (or press E) to archive them all at once.