Help! I Have Too Many Emails In My Inbox!

We all like a clutter-free email inbox where we can easily locate the messages and attachments we need. However, it’s often hard to maintain a clean Gmail inbox given the high volume of emails we receive each and every day.

There are many useful Gmail tips you can apply to maintain an organized mailbox, but most of them require you to stay on top of your emails each day. When things get out of hand, it may be time to resort to drastic measures, like moving or deleting hundreds of emails at once. Once you learn how to select all messages in Gmail, you can easily delete, archive, or move them to clean out the clutter.

How Do I Quickly Handle a Large Number of Emails on the Gmail App?

To quickly handle a large number of emails in Gmail, consider using the Clean Email app. It is a powerful email organization app that allows you to automate mobile email management and delete emails in bulk, saving both time and effort.

Clean Email organizes your emails into easy-to-review bundles, lets you create rules for automated actions, and provides advanced filters to target specific messages. This makes it an invaluable tool for maintaining a clutter-free inbox without the manual effort typically required by Gmail’s native features.

How To Select All Emails In Gmail

If you want to manage your emails in bulk, then you must first learn how to select them in your Gmail account. You can do this by choosing all messages through webmail or selecting all emails in the Gmail app.

How To Select All In Gmail On Web

Navigate to your inbox by going to https://mail.google.com/.
Click the Select checkbox in the upper left of your inbox (directly under the search bar).

Now, above your messages in the inbox, you will see a message stating, “All … messages on this page are selected.”
To choose all messages, click the words, “Select all … messages in Inbox” to check every message in the inbox.

Once all emails are checked, you can choose to perform an action (delete, archive, move, mark all read, label).

If you aren’t sure what to do with the messages, it may help to learn the best way to organize Gmail.

Select All In Gmail App on Mobile

Can I Use a Gesture or Shortcut to Select Multiple Emails in Gmail on My Phone?

No, Gmail features on mobile are limited and the app doesn't support gestures or shortcuts to select multiple emails at once. You'll need to manually tap each email to select it, or tap Select All to choose the fist 50 displayed messages.

Unfortunately, if you want to know how to select all in Gmail app on Android or iPhone, you’re a bit out of luck. While Gmail on the desktop offers a convenient Select all messages button, this feature for bulk email selection is not available on mobile, making it difficult to select more than 50 messages at once.

To select multiple messages on an iPhone or Android device:

Open the Gmail app and go to your Inbox.
Tap the circular sender icon next to an email to pick it.
Tap Select all to choose the first 50 messages.
Scroll down to load more messages, then press Select all again to select another 50.
Continue scrolling to the bottom and press Select all to check all remaining messages in the folder.

If you are an iPhone user, there is another workaround that will let you select all emails in Gmail app, but it involves using your Apple Mail app. Here’s how:

Open the Mail app from your iPhone.
If you haven’t already added your Gmail account to Mail, you will need to go to Settings → Mail and tap Accounts → Add Account to login to your Gmail.
Once set up, choose your Gmail inbox from the mailbox list when you open the Mail app.
Click Edit in the top right of your screen. Tap Select All.

Select All Using the Clean Email App

As you can see, selecting all emails in the Gmail mobile app is tedious, especially if you have a lot of emails in your inbox. But don’t worry—the Clean Email app, available for Android and iOS Gmail management, simplifies the process of handling your emails on mobile when the Gmail app features are not enough.

With just a few taps, you can easily select multiple emails—even all of them—just as if you were using Gmail tricks from the desktop on mobile, and quickly apply various actions to them.

To select all messages in your mailbox using Clean Email:

Go to the All Mail folder.
Tap the Select button below or the circular icon next to any sender to select a message bundle.
Tap Select All at the bottom to mark all messages.

Select All emails on mobile using Clean Email

How To Select All Unread Emails In Gmail

It is easy to select all emails in Gmail. However, selecting just unread messages for more efficient email handling takes additional time. There are two methods you can use to choose all unread emails, each of which is outlined below.

Selecting All Unread for the First Page

Open your inbox.
Locate the Select checkbox in the upper left of your inbox (directly under the search bar).
Click the down arrow to the right of the checkbox.
From the drop-down menu, choose Unread.
This will check all unread emails from the first page of your inbox.

Selecting All Unread Using Search

Open your mailbox.
Locate the Search Bar at the top of the page.
Use the Gmail search operator 'is:unread' to perform a search for all unread messages.
Now, the search result will include all unread emails from anywhere in your inbox.
Click the Select checkbox in the upper left of your inbox (directly under the search bar).

Now, above your messages in the inbox, you will see a message stating, “All … conversations on this page are selected.”
To choose all unread messages, click the words, “Select all conversations that match this search.”

Selecting All Unread Using Clean Email

To easily select all your unread messages in Gmail with the help of Clean Email:

Open the app and pick the Unread Mail filter from the left-hand menu.
Tap Select, then choose Select All.

💡 Note: Clean Email offers various options for bulk email handling. After selecting all unread messages, you can sort them by Newest on Top or Oldest on Top, and more. Particularly useful is the Number of Messages (High to Low) option, which helps identify the biggest inbox offenders. You can then mark these messages as read or take other actions as needed.

How To Select All Emails From One Sender In Gmail

Gmail also provides multiple options for those who want to choose all emails from a single sender. Below you’ll find directions for both methods.

Selecting All Messages by Locating Single Message

Open your Gmail inbox.
Locate one email from the sender you want to mark all messages from.
Right-click on the message from your inbox.
From the options, choose “Find emails from…”

Gmail will now display all messages from this sender.
Click the Select checkbox in the upper left of your inbox (directly under the search bar). This will check all messages displayed on the first page.
To choose all messages from this sender, click the words, “Select all conversations that match this search.”

Selecting All Messages from Sender by Using Search

Open your mailbox.
Locate the Search Bar at the top of the page.
Use the Gmail search operator from: and add the email address after the colon. This will search for all messages from that sender’s address.
Click the Select checkbox in the upper left of your inbox (directly under the search bar). This will highlight all emails displayed on the first page.
To mark all letters from this sender, click the option, “Select all conversations that match this search.”

How To Select Multiple Emails In Gmail

Open your mail account.
Click the checkbox next to any message to select it.
Continue clicking checkboxes next to the messages you wish to be selected.

💡 Note: If you want to select messages all in a row, you can use Shift + Click to check all messages in that range.

Not using Gmail? You can also learn how to select multiple emails in Outlook.

How to Deselect All Emails in Gmail

If you have selected multiple emails and need to deselect them, follow these simple steps:

Deselect All Emails

If you selected all emails on one page, click the checkbox to deselect them all, or click the down arrow next to the checkbox and choose None.

If you selected all emails in your inbox or in a folder, a Clear selection button will appear. Click it.

Deselect Individual Emails

To deselect specific emails manually, click the checkbox next to each selected email.

Manage Your Messages Effectively With Clean Email

As you can tell, Gmail provides users with multiple options to help them highlight messages. However, it’s also easy to select all emails in Gmail and quickly apply actions within the Clean Email app.

To select all emails using the Clean Email app, simply:

Launch the app or sign in here.
Choose All Mail from the left-side panel.
Click on Select button which is located under the search bar. Then click Select All.
Now, choose any action from the action panel that you want to apply to these messages.

💡 Note: If you want to instead only choose all messages in a certain folder (Inbox, Trash, etc.), you can simply choose the corresponding location instead of All Mail on the left-side panel.

Although the ability to select all emails in Gmail is handy, it isn’t nearly everything Clean Email has to offer. In fact, this inbox management tool makes it easy to manage email overload and achieve Gmail inbox zero.

For example, Smart Folders feature sorts messages for you based on criteria they share, like Social notifications or Productivity tools. With this feature, you can choose any Smart Folder and quickly perform Gmail bulk actions on all selected messages in that folder. This makes it much easier to clean out the clutter without setting up complex rules and filters within the Gmail app.

What’s more, with Smart Folders, you can easily find and select all missing emails that might be hard to locate in a cluttered inbox.

Similarly, the Auto Clean feature lets you automate any email task you’d like. So, instead of deleting all those messages from online retailers every Friday, you can program Auto Clean to do that task for you. Similarly, you can program Auto Clean to manage old mail, apply labels, move messages into folders, block unwanted senders and domains, and more!

Create Filters on Mobile with Clean Email

In all, Clean Email offers over a dozen features that will help make mailbox management easier and less time-consuming for you. Because of the app’s security and privacy focus, you never have to worry about what’s happening with your data, and since it works with all IMAP-based email providers, you can use Clean Email with Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or most other applications you can think of.

Wondering to get more tips and tricks? Check out our guides on how to find old emails in Gmail and how to find unread messages in Gmail.

How to select all in Gmail - FAQs

How do I select email in Gmail?

You can highlight a single message or any number of messages in Gmail by using the select checkboxes next to each message. If you need to pick all mail in Gmail app to delete, you can use the checkbox at the top of the inbox to choose all first, then apply the delete action.

Is there a way to mass select emails in Gmail?

Figuring out how to select all in Gmail isn’t terribly hard. From the inbox, you can use the Select checkbox to mark all messages on the current page, then click “Select all conversations” to mark the rest.

Is there a way to bulk select emails in the Gmail app?

In the Gmail app, you can select multiple emails by tapping the circular sender icon next to an email, and then tapping Select All. However, the app limits bulk selection, requiring you to scroll down to the bottom of your inbox to mark everything. For a more efficient approach, the Clean Email app allows you to select all emails at once and manage them in bulk with fewer steps.

How can I manage and organize multiple emails at once in the Gmail app?

You can manage and organize multiple emails by selecting them individually and applying actions like archiving, labeling, or deleting. For more advanced features, Clean Email offers tools to automate email sorting and deletion, conveniently available in the mobile app.

Can you select all in Gmail app?

Unfortunately, Gmail’s mobile app currently doesn’t support the Select All feature, but there are some workarounds if you need to do it.

Are there any Gmail app features that allow for easier bulk email selection?

The Gmail app’s bulk selection feature is limited to selecting the first 50 emails at a time, requiring you to scroll down repeatedly to select all emails. Clean Email offers enhanced features that allow you to select and manage all emails in bulk for greater efficiency.

What tips can help improve email management efficiency on the Gmail app?

To improve efficiency, set up filters and labels to automatically sort incoming emails, and regularly archive or delete older messages to keep your inbox organized. Additionally, Clean Email offers automation tools that can streamline these tasks, making bulk email management easier and more efficient.

How can I enhance my productivity with email management in the Gmail app?

Enhance productivity by creating specific filters for different types of emails, using labels to organize your inbox, and taking advantage of Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts to quickly navigate and manage emails. Regularly reviewing and cleaning up your inbox can also help maintain a clutter-free environment, allowing you to focus on more important tasks.

Are there tips for managing emails in the Gmail app on iOS devices?

On iOS, you can efficiently manage emails by utilizing swipe gestures for quick actions such as archiving, deleting, or marking emails as read. Additionally, take advantage of Gmail’s built-in features like labels and filters to keep your inbox organized. For a more robust solution, Clean Email’s iOS app provides tools for bulk email selection, organization, and automation, making it easier to maintain a clutter-free inbox.