How to delete old emails in Gmail (2024)

QUICK ANSWER

To delete old emails in Gmail:

1. In the search bar, either put older_than:[time period] or before:[date]to find the old emails. The period is a number and a letter, such as 1y for one year, or4w for four weeks. The date is in format YYYY/MM/DD.
2. Press enter.
3. Tick the checkbox in the top left above the search results to select them all.
4. Click on thetrash can icon to delete them.

Keep scrolling for more guidance on this process, and to find out how to delete old emails automatically.

JUMP TO KEY SECTIONS

• How to delete old emails in Gmail
• How to automatically delete old emails in Gmail

How to delete old emails in Gmail on desktop

To delete all old emails in Gmail, you can follow these steps:

• Search for old emails. You can use two general methods. To find all emails older than a certain amount of time, use older_than:[time period]. To find all emails received before a certain date, usebefore:[date].
• You only need a number and a single letter to denote the period. d is day,w is week,m is month, andy is year. For the date, you input using the format YYYY/MM/DD.
• For example, if you wanted to find emails older than two years, you would putolder_than:2y into the search bar.
• If you wanted to find all emails received before March 2023, you would searchbefore:2023/03/01.

• Note that if you have more than one page of results (more than 50 emails) you will see a message at this stage telling you that clicking this checkbox has only highlighted all of the emails on that page. It will also give you the option to Select all conversations that match this search in the results. Press this if you want to delete all of them.
• Finally, hit theTrash can icon to move all of these emails to the trash.
• They will be deleted from the trash folder automatically after 30 days. But you can remove them completely right away by emptying the trash in Gmail.

How to delete old emails in Gmail on mobile

• Open the Gmail app and tap the search bar.
• Type older_than:1y (or your desired period) and press enter orbefore:2023/01/01 (replace with your desired date) in the search bar and press enter.
• If emails are found, you can select and delete them in bulk.

How to automatically delete old emails in Gmail

As easy as the above process is, you don’t need to review it periodically. You can set up a filter to automatically delete old emails in Gmail. It’s really easy to do now that you have the search terms you need.

• Start by clicking on theShow search options button. It’s at the far right of the search bar and is represented by an icon of some dials.
• You’ll see various fields that you can use to filter the emails. You need to use the search terms from the section above in theHas the words field.
• In this example, I want to delete all of my more than five years old emails. So in the Has the words field I have inputted older_than:2y.
• Next, pressCreate filter.
• You now get a second menu of options to decide what happens to the emails to which your filter applies. Click on the checkbox next toDelete it.

You’ll return to the inbox with a message in the bottom left corner confirming that your filter was created. Old emails matching the filter criteria will be deleted automatically. Just be sure that you’re sure, as you may not be able to recover deleted emails.