What is Marking Emails as Read?
Marking emails as read is simply the act of opening the message without spending any time viewing or reading it. It’s a great way to manage your emails to create a clean mailbox.
If you have hundreds of unread emails and want to start afresh, clear notifications by marking emails as read and sort the rest later.
Once you have learnt how to mark all existing emails as read, you can then progress on other ways you can filter incoming messages from certain senders automatically, just once they hit your inbox. Clean Email has lots of handy features that will assist you with doing so (see the end of the article).
How to Mark All Emails as Read
So, you’ve decided to finally remove all the email notifications that are simply making you feel overwhelmed and stressed.
Here’s how to mark all unread emails as read within different devices and apps.
How to mark all emails as read in Gmail
Gmail web app makes it easy to label all messages as read within their mailbox. There are two ways to do this, depending on the volume of your unread messages.
If you only have a few unread emails within the first page of your mailbox, you can simply click the Select checkbox at the top of the page and choose “Mark as read” button.
If you have hundreds and pages of unread emails, then you can utilise the Gmail Advanced Search feature.
Here’s what to do:
- Locate the search bar and type is:unread. Press the Enter key.
- Next, press the down arrow on the Select checkbox, choose All. All unread messages will be highlighted.
- Finally, click “Mark as read” button at the top panel.
💡 Note: Marking emails as read on iPhone in the Gmail app is more of a tedious task. This is because you can only mark emails selecting them one by one. There is no option to select all unread emails and mark them as read at once.
Check out our other guides on how to delete all unread emails in Gmail and how to mark all emails as read in Gmail on mobile.
How to mark emails in Outlook web app
To mark all emails as read within Outlook, you can perform one of the following tasks:
- Simply, click “Mark as read” button at the top of an unread message.
- Right-click the message you want to be marked and choose the desired action.
- If you are using the Outlook Focused Inbox, click the Mark all as read button near the New message option. You will be asked to mark all your unread conversations as read. Choose OK.
Learn more about how to mark all emails as read in Outlook desktop and mobile apps.
How to label all messages as read in Mail app on iPhone
Here is how to do it using the iPhone's built-in email app.
- Go into the Mail app.
- Click the Edit button at the top right corner.
- Click Select All.
- On the bottom panel, choose Mark → Mark as read.
In Mail app on Mac
Head into your Mail app, then do one of the following:
- Mark one message at a time by swiping right with two fingers on the trackpad over the selected message. Click Read.
- Hold the Shift key to select multiple unread emails, then right-click and choose Mark as read.
- To mark all the unread emails, hold the Control key and click on the Mailbox within the sidebar. You can then choose to Mark all messages as read.
Mark Messages as Read with Clean Email Automatically
Instead of marking your messages manually, you can use the Clean Email app to automate this process and label all necessary messages as read once they hit your inbox.
First, here is how to find all Unread messages in your mail account using Clean Email.
- Launch the app and sign in with your mail account.
- Click the Unread Mail filter from the left-side menu. Then, click the Select button.
- Choose Select All.
- Then, click the Mark Read option from the bottom action menu.
Clean Email’s Auto Clean feature enables you to automate any routine email tasks (like marking messages as read) that would usually take up some time. Create an automatic rule to clean your inbox as soon as new messages appear.
Here is how to mark messages automatically with Clean Email:
- Launch the app and sign in with your mail account.
- Choose All Mail from the left-side dashboard and search for the message you’d like to be marked automatically.
- Click the circle checkbox near the message to select it. Then, choose the Create Rule option from the bottom menu.
- Complete the form for creating an Auto Clean rule (choose an action to apply, choose to apply to existing messages if needed, etc.) and click Create Rule.
All future messages from this sender will be marked as read automatically once they hit your inbox.
The app also offers other handy features that will support your email organisation.
Smart Folders will automatically sort your messages into smart email bundles such as ‘Social notifications’, ‘Finance’, ‘Emails older than 6 months’, and more. Making it easier for you to find emails you are looking for, and sort through them!
Unsubscriber feature allows you to easily view all subscriptions you have. You can unsubscribe with one click, keep the subscription, or choose to Read Later, sending any subscription mail into a separate folder.
Clean Email makes it easy to clean up your inbox, create a stress-free mailbox, and organise your life. You can read more about email management best practices here.
Mark All Emails as Read - FAQs
How do I mark all unread emails as read in the inbox?
You can do that by highlighting and selecting all messages and choosing Mark as read. You may need to scroll down a few times to complete them all.
How do I mark all unread emails as read in Gmail?
Use Gmail Advanced Search bar and type: is:unread . Then, select all found messages and click Mark as read on the top action bar.
How do I mark the entire Inbox as read in Outlook?
For doing this, hover over the message bar at the top of the page and click Mark all as read.
