What's the best way to clear a Gmail/email inbox?

[Whatliesbeneath707]

Sorry if this isn't in the correct topic, but I couldn't see where else to ask.

I've got thousands of emails in a personal Gmail account. Some I need to keep but haven't got the time to trawl through, and others I want to unsubscribe from.

If I was to the delete the whole lot, then started to manage the inbox from there, would that work? I'm thinking this will be the most efficient way to do it. Do you agree, or are there any better ways? Thanks.

When I'm in this mood I realise how many marketing emails I get from online shops I've bought from or things I've subscribed to. So every time I get an email I consider if I genuinely still want and if not unsubscribe. But either way I then do an immediate search for that sender and delete all previous. Clears a lot.out but does take time.

You go onto the desktop site and have to select 'all'. There may be thousands

Coykd you not just label them all "to sort" and archive them

Then it's a clear inbox.

Then at another date, when any email comes in label it and create a rule -ie "friends" which can label new emails and existing ones.

Unsubscribe from unwanted stuff.

After a while check what emails are still in "to sort" without any other label. Sort by sender then categorise/label them.

Yep just archive them. That way you can still find them but your Inbox is clear. The archive button is the one with the folder and the down arrow in it. To archive thousands you'll need Gmail on a desktop machine, in a browser, so you can easily multiselect or set up a filter to move everything in bulk.

Search "unsubscribe" and then tick delete all. All marketing messages gone in a flash.

Heh op I am the same. 🙋🏻‍♀️ Keep wanting to clear it all and I have started unsubscribing from things bit sometimes I decide to keep it as I want to read something I found useful etc and they just pile up! Some things i do keep though as I previously needed the info and thankfully I have kept the email

Joining as I feel so guilty about keeping them and the carbon footprint

It's so annoying that you can't select all on your phone !

Hi, I did this in July as my inbox was at nearly 3000 (mainly unread marketing emails) started deleting marketing emails as they arrived and searching for all previous from same company. Then when waiting to collect kids from activities I searched other things like Tesco etc and deleted all those old messages. I did find some messages with info I needed so was glad I didn’t delete all. I also created a folder “bookings/orders” so anything I order/book goes in there and once a week I’m trying to delete as they arrive.
Took the full month to do but is nice now having less than 10 unread emails at a time.

I sort emails into "from" so that all Tesco are together etc, and then delete clumps at a time as it makes it easier than having to trawl through date order and see what you want to keep.

I also have a separate email address that is used purely for shopping so that its easier to delete the emails and know that nothing business/personal is in there.

I have a business email, personal email and shopping email.

I also unsubscribe from as much as possible as some companies send daily emails

I'm currently clearing my inbox of thousands of emails, dating back to 2009!
Why I never thought to do it before, I have no idea.
Especially as I only seem able to delete 50 at a time!

Mass deletion of emails in Gmail - this might help @BCSurvivor ?

@tribpot thank you!
I'm deleting from Bt Email and I can't see any option except for 50 emails?
Gmail is next on my list!

I've never used it but I understand the BT interface is a bit clunky @BCSurvivor - this looks worth a try.

Go to the desktop site. Search for emails containing 'unsubscribe'. That will show you all the marketing emails/newsletters so you can probably bin all of those.

That is genius!! Thanks

You can have different inbox headings on gmail

All emails
Promotions
Social media

If you set this up it's so much easier to empty each heading of crap unwanted e mails

All e mails = important every day things from friends, banks, etc and doesn't get clogged up with offers from whatever co is trying to sell you something.

You can do it through settings on gmail

Looks like this

Anyone got more than 143,216 in their inbox ?
Place marking- I think I need to come back to this

I've actually got rid of those Inbox categories @areyouhavinglaugh , as part of this Inbox Zero approach
(which I have definitely not implemented in its entirety - I still use my inbox as a sort of task list but I keep the entire inbox to under 50 items at all times).

Better than having nice labels for your unwanted email is stopping them from arriving in the first place, which is about being ruthless in unsubscribing and setting up rules for stuff that has to arrive but which you don't actually need to read, so things like my monthly invoice from my internet service provider - I can set up a rule so it bypasses the inbox.

Apparently if you put unsubscribe in the search bar it brings up all the marketing ones, so you could do that and delete them all. Better on desktop than phone though.

In the meantime, set up a second Gmail account for marketing only.

Do a quick search for important emails such as from bank, car insurance etc and put them into email files. Then just select all remaining and delete.

How do you actually get things off your inbox list and into a folder? I've done the labels thing, fine. But they still all show under Inbox, just with a label next to them
I want them out of the inbox.

You should be able to create new folders and then go into the main inbox do a word search such as insurance etc tick them all and move into one of the folders.

In Gmail really everything is a label. All you want to do is remove the 'Inbox' label from the message. If you're using a browser, you can literally remove the label when you're in a message

but in practical terms you can use the toolbar at the top. 'Archive' (red arrow) also removes the Inbox label and the mail can be viewed in the 'All Mail' folder and 'Move to' (blue arrow) applies the chosen label and removes the Inbox label, in effect moving it to a particular folder.