Stop struggling with ‘inbox zero’ and just delete all your emails

Say goodbye to the anxiety of "zero inbox" and delete all emails with one click! This article will guide you on how to delete messages in batches, clean your inbox thoroughly, and keep important messages.

(The article has been updated, the original text was published on August 2, 2018)

Every day, pursuing "zero inbox" is always futile? Emails keep pouring in, making people run away. Why not try a complete reset! Instead of trying hard to sort out those long-clogged email archives, it is better to delete them with one click and get rid of them easily!

Do you really need to keep so many emails? Project outlines, important contracts, etc. are important, but hundreds of useless notifications and updates occupy valuable space. Most emails a month or more ago are worthless, and deleting them can effectively alleviate the anxiety caused by thousands of unread emails. To keep your inbox organized, you can do this "turnaround" cleanup regularly.

Email clients such as Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail all support single email deletion. But this article will explain how to delete hundreds of emails in batches. Batch deletion in a web browser or desktop client is easier than in a mobile app, so it is recommended that you do this on your computer rather than on your phone.

Keep important emails

Of course, we don't want you to delete really important emails, such as important interview notifications or emails that contain attachments to your property certificate. Therefore, before deleting messages in batches, filter and save important messages.

First, search for keywords such as “attachment”, “contract” and the names of important people (such as your boss, lawyer, and family). You can also view messages you have starred or marked as important.

After you find the messages you need to keep, you need to exclude them from the upcoming cleanup operation. You can forward them to another email address (you can create an account specifically to save important messages), move them to folders you plan to exclude from batch deletion, print them out or save them as digital PDF files. We recommend the last method because it allows you to store your precious mail on your computer local storage, in the cloud, or both.

To create a PDF file, open the message you want to save and click "Print". Then, instead of sending it to the printer, save it as a PDF. On Windows, click the drop-down menu next to name and select Microsoft Print to PDF. On macOS, PDF should appear in the lower left corner of the print dialog - click it and select Save as PDF to set the save location and any other file properties you want. If you work in a browser, your options may be slightly different, but in Google Chrome you will see Save as PDF in the drop-down menu next to Target.

How to delete emails in Gmail

Clearing the entire Gmail account is very easy. First, click All mails on the left (you may need to scroll down a little) to access each mail in each folder. When you select all messages on the screen (by checking the selection box in the upper left corner), a new link should appear at the top of the page. This link lists the total number of messages in your account and allows you to select all conversations . Click the link, click the Delete button (trash can icon), and all messages in your inbox will disappear.

If you do not want to delete everything, run a search or select a category other than All messages and follow the steps above to delete the smaller message group. This approach won't clear everything, but it allows you to clean your inbox more accurately.

[Related: 9 advanced Gmail search tips to help you find missing information]

For example, if you have a tag for miscellaneous and unimportant messages, you can delete it. Or, if you have a lot of unread emails and know you will never read them, search for "is:unread" and delete them. We also recommend that you find and delete emails by time period: For example, searching for "older_than:1y" will display all emails over a year.

Delete all Outlook emails

With Outlook Mail Client, you cannot delete all messages in one click like you would in Gmail. Instead, you have to process your folders one by one. Depending on the number of folders you have, this can take a while, although it gives you more flexibility in which messages are deleted and which ones are not deleted.

You can start with your Inbox: Click Inbox, switch to the Folder tab on the ribbon, and select Delete All. After confirming your selection, all messages in the folder will be moved to the Deleted messages folder. This trash will automatically delete the email after 30 days, or you can manually clear it by opening it, going to the folder tab and clicking Clear folder . Repeat this process for your archive folder and continue processing other folders. To completely delete a category, select it, go to the Folder tab, and select Delete Folder.

If you access your mail through the Outlook.com web portal, the process is very similar, except that you don't need to use the commands in the folder tab. Instead, when you are ready to delete the contents of the folder, open it, click Ctrl A (on Windows) or Cmd A (on Mac) to select everything, and then Click to delete . To completely delete the folder, right-click it and select Delete .

As with Gmail, we recommend you try some search terms so that you can narrow down the selection you want to delete by date or sender. For example, type "from:" followed by an email address to find messages from important contacts so you can move them to a secure location. To limit the files you want to delete to older messages, type "before:mm/dd/yyyy".

How to batch delete mail in Apple Mail

In the Apple Mail Mail client on macOS, you can clear your history folder by folder - just like in Outlook. If you have organized your inbox, this makes it easy to separate important messages from discardable ones. Once you decide which folder you want to delete, you can delete the mail in it, or delete the entire folder and its contents at once. Like Outlook, deleted messages are kept for 30 days in case you want to recover them.

To keep the folder (or what Apple calls "mailbox") itself, click Cmd ASelect each email in the category and click Delete key. For folders you create in your main iCloud account, you can delete them and their mail at once: Right-click or Ctrl Click the folder under the heading iCloud and select Delete mailbox , and then click in the pop-up dialog box to delete .

You can also clear emails through the iCloud website. Go to the

Mail component of the web interface and open any folders. Select an email, click Cmd A to select all messages in the folder, and then click the Trash Can button at the top of the page.

Like Gmail and Outlook, the search operator will help you to delete more selectively. For example, type "

from:" followed by an email address to identify (and then export or move) the message you want to keep. To make a time selection, you can highlight the date range by typing "date:mm/dd/yyyy-mm/dd/yyyy" in the search box at the top.

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