Delete messages in Gmail
To clean up your inbox, delete messages one at a time or by specific categories. Deleted messages move from your inbox to your trash.
Learn what happens when you delete a message
Important: When you delete a draft, you can't recover it from Trash.
When you delete a message in Gmail, it's moved to Trash.
Up to 30 days after deletion:
- You can find the message in Trash.
- You can recover the message from your trash and move it back to your inbox.
- You can also delete the message permanently. After that, you can't recover the message.
After 30 days:
- The message is permanently deleted.
- You can't recover the message.
Delete one or more messages
Delete a message in a conversation
Important: To group messages together as a conversation, turn on conversation view.- Open the message.
- Next to Reply 👁 Image
, click More 👁 More
👁 and then
Delete this message.
Delete all messages
- On your computer, go to Gmail.
- On the left, select a category. For example:
- Inbox
- Promotions
- All mail
- To select all messages on the current page, at the top left, above your messages, check the Select box.
- Above your messages, a notification shows the number of selected conversations on the current page. For example: "All 50 conversations on this page are selected. Select all 2,000 conversations in Inbox."
- To select all conversations, click the link in the notification.
- At the top, click Delete 👁 Image
.
To delete specific emails, enter a search operator in the search bar.
For example, you can search for:
- Senders: From: fatima@cymbal.com
- Date ranges: after:2025/3/29 before:2025/4/5
- Keywords: “Confidential”
- Message attributes like attachments: has:attachment
Empty your trash
- On your computer, go to Gmail.
- On the left, click More 👁 and then
Trash. - On the left of each message you want to permanently delete, check the box.
- At the top, click Delete forever.
Tip: To delete all messages in your trash, in the notification at the top, click Empty Trash now.
Remove messages from your trash
- On your computer, go to Gmail.
- On the left, click More 👁 and then
Trash. - On the left of each message you want to move, check the box.
- At the top, click Move to👁 Image
. - In the “Move to” menu, choose where you want to move the messages.