How to Delete Old Emails in Gmail with Ease

Does Gmail Delete Old Emails Automatically?

If you’ve experienced missing messages, you might be wondering if Gmail automatically deletes old emails. A lot of users became concerned after Google announced the deletion of old accounts in 2023. However, that announcement was regarding inactive Google accounts and content with services like Gmail, Photos, Drive, and others, not specifically for removing old messages.

What Gmail does delete automatically are items in your Trash. This section of your mailbox contains emails you’ve removed yourself. After you delete a message, it goes to the Trash and remains there for 30 days before Gmail permanently deletes it. Gmail also empties the Spam folder every 30 days.

With this in mind, it’s time to get to the crux of the article which is how to erase old emails in Gmail. We’ll show you a few ways to do this depending on the age of the message, the Gmail version you’re using, and even discuss how to auto-delete in Gmail. For a quick guide, watch this video and read on to discover more.

Delete Emails Older or Younger Than a Certain Date

One of the most sensible ways to remove emails you no longer need is based on age. For instance, you may have multiple messages that have been around for years keeping you from having a clean Gmail inbox.

Example 1: How to sort and delete emails in Gmail by year?

You can find all emails from a specific year by using the “after” and “before” search operators and then deleting the results. For instance, to show messages from 2010, follow the steps below.

1. Enter: after:01/01/2010 before:12/31/2010 in the Search field and press Enter. This displays all email messages received between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010.
2. Mark the Select checkbox on the top left and optionally choose a filter in the drop-down list like Read, Unread, or Starred.
3. Only the first 50 messages will be selected. To mark all, click the Select all conversations that match this search button.
4. Click Delete (trash can) in the toolbar.

Example 2: How to delete emails older than 1 year in Gmail?

Maybe you’d like to find and delete all emails that are older than one year in your mailbox. For this, you can use the “older_than” search operator.

1. Enter: older_than:1y in the Search field followed by Enter or Return. This displays all emails received older than one year.
2. Mark the Select checkbox on the top left and optionally choose a filter in the drop-down list.
3. To select more than the first 50 or 100 messages (by default), click the Select all conversations that match this search button.
4. Click Delete in the toolbar.

By quickly sorting those old emails before you delete them, you may discover one you want to keep.

Example 3: How to automatically delete email after 30 days on your smartphone?

In the Gmail mobile app, you can’t directly set emails to auto-delete after 30 days. Instead, you can download the Clean Email app for iOS or Android and follow this guide:

1. Launch Clean Email and sign in with your mailbox credentials.
2. Tap the hamburger menu in the top left corner and choose the folder you need (e.g., Social notifications).
3. Click the Old Mail filter.
4. Choose Older than 1 month or another filter.
5. Select an email group or groups (note: emails are already grouped by sender so you don’t need to look for them manually) and tap More at the bottom.
6. Choose Create Rule.
7. Select an action like Delete (removes messages permanently without going to Trash).
8. Switch the Apply to existing messages toggle if needed and click Create Rule again.

How to Delete Old Emails in Gmail in Bulk or Delete Them All

Along with using search operators to locate older messages, you can use Gmail’s timeframe drop-down box on the web. This feature provides results based on age in your entire mailbox, but we’ll also show you how to filter it to only your Inbox.

Example 4: Delete emails from Inbox using a custom date range

1. Open your Gmail account.
2. In the search bar, type in:inbox and press Enter.
3. Use the Any time drop-down list at the top to enter a custom range. Click Custom range.
4. Choose the time period you need and click Apply.
5. Check the Select box on the top left and optionally filter the results by Read, Unread, Starred, or Unstarred.
6. To select all emails under this search (if there are more than 50 or 100 of them), click the Select all conversations that match this search link.
7. Click Delete in the toolbar.

Example 5: Delete recent promotional emails

To declutter your inbox by removing promotional emails from the last month, follow these steps:

1. Open your Gmail account on the web.
2. In the search bar, type category:promotions newer_than:1m and press Enter.
3. Mark the checkbox at the top above your messages.
4. Click the link that says Select all conversations that match this search.
5. Click the Delete (trash can) icon.

How to Remove Old Mail in the Gmail App on a Phone

If you’re a mobile Gmail user, removing messages on Android, iPhone, and iPad is straightforward, though the Gmail mobile app has fewer features compared to Gmail on the web. It lacks setting automated rules and easily selecting all emails.

Open the Gmail mobile app and follow along to delete old emails in bulk:

1. Tap inside the Search in Mail field at the top.
2. Select Date and pick the age or enter a custom range.
3. Long-press any message in the results.
4. Select additional emails or mark Select all at the top. Note that only the first 30 emails will be selected.
5. Scroll to the bottom to load additional emails.
6. Choose and tap the extra ones manually or tap Select all at the top again.
7. Tap the Delete icon in the toolbar.

How To Automatically Delete Old Emails In Gmail

Deleting old messages once isn’t enough. Since new messages keep coming every day, you need to learn how to auto delete old emails in Gmail:

1. Open your Gmail account using the web browser.
2. Click the Settings gear icon and select the See all settings option.
3. Go to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab.
4. Click Create a new filter.
5. Enter older_than:1y (or older_than:90d, etc.) in the Has the words field. I recommend adding more filtering criteria to ensure no important messages fall into this search.
6. Click Create Filter and OK to confirm.
7. Select the Delete it option and click Create filter again.

Gmail will now automatically delete all emails that are older than 1 year (or the age you’ve specified).

Important: The Delete option in Gmail actually means sending emails to Trash, where they will occupy your storage space until Gmail completely removes them after 30 days. To save storage space, I use Clean Email to remove old messages with its Delete option, which immediately clears out the clutter.

Compared to Gmail’s native filters, the Clean Email app offers more customizable and comprehensive rules for automating email tasks. You can pause these rules anytime as needed and restart them, which is impossible in Gmail where you would have to delete and recreate a filter.

Additionally, in Clean Email, you can include various criteria, such as deleting unread Gmail emails or specifying a Smart folder, among others.

Here's how to make Gmail auto delete old emails using Clean Email’s Auto Clean feature:

1. Start by opening the app and navigating to Auto Clean in the menu on the left side. Next, tap on the ✚ (plus) icon located at the top of the screen.
2. Start by naming your rule. Then, define the criteria for the rule: you can select emails from a specific sender or domain, determine how old emails should be for the rule to apply, and more. For further refinement, options like message size, specific keywords, and additional filters are available to precisely target the messages you need.
3. In the ‘Apply Action’ section, choose what you want to do with the emails that meet your criteria, such as moving them to the Trash folder.
4. Once you've configured all settings, finalize the process by clicking the Create Rule button.