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:

Important: To group messages together as a conversation, turn on conversation view.

An animation showing how to delete all messages in your Gmail inbox or another category on your computer

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 .

To delete specific emails, enter a search operator in the search bar.

For example, you can search for:

Tip: To delete all messages in your trash, in the notification at the top, click Empty Trash now.

An animation showing how to move messages from your Gmail trash to another location on your computer