How to Select All Messages in Gmail

This article explains how to select every Gmail email at once from the desktop website. Doing so lets you apply a new label to the selected messages, bulk-delete emails, mark them as read, and more.

How to Select All Emails in Gmail

Once you find the emails you want to manage, highlighting all of them is a simple, two-step process.

1. Click the label that has the emails you want to select. For example, to select every email in your Gmail Inbox, click Inbox.

2. Right below the search bar and above your emails, click the checkbox to select all the messages that are currently displayed. Or, select the arrow next to this checkbox to choose the types of emails to be selected, such as Read, Unread, Starred, or Unstarred.
   

   At this point, you have only selected the messages that are visible on the screen.

3. To select every email in Gmail, including those that are not currently displayed, look at the top of your email list for an additional button, and select it. It look like this: Select all [#] conversations in [label].

How to Select All Gmail Emails From a Search

Gmail provides some powerful search tools to help you find emails quickly. For example, you can locate your biggest emails, look for messages that have attachments, or find emails that arrived on a specific date.

When you use advanced search options, you can select everything that came up in that search. It works nearly the same as the directions we covered above but with a single difference...

1. Run the search to find the messages you're looking for.

2. Click the checkbox above the search results to select all the messages.

3. Click Select all conversations that match this search.

What You Can Do With Selected Emails

Anything you can do with a single email, Gmail lets you do with a selection of messages. Here are some actions you can take when you select lots of emails at once:

• Delete: To remove the selected emails, click the trashcan icon.
• Archive: This icon appears as a box with a small arrow in it. Archiving emails removes those messages from view in your Inbox without deleting them, which is great for tidying up. Once archived, an email will not appear in your inbox, but it can be found through a search or by viewing the All Mail folder.
• Report spam: This button uses a stop sign with an exclamation point in its center. Selecting it moves emails to your Spam folder, and future emails from these senders bypass your Inbox and go to your Spam folder automatically.
• Move to: This button has a folder icon on it, and it allows you to move your selected emails into a folder or label.
• Labels: This button has an image of a tag on it. It allows you to assign labels to selected emails.

The More button (the three dots) offers several other options for your selected emails. These include:

• Mark as read
• Mark as unread
• Mark as important
• Mark as not important
• Add star
• Filter messages like these
• Mute
• Forward as attachment