How to delete all emails from one sender in Gmail

Gmail can delete everything from one sender in about two minutes. The trick is a search plus one link most people miss. Here's the manual route, where it falls short, and the one-click version.

The manual way, step by step#

This works on Gmail in a desktop browser. It costs nothing.

1. Search for the sender. Click the Gmail search bar and type from: followed by the sender's address, such as from:news@example.com. Press Enter. Gmail's from: operator is one of the standard search operators, listed in Google's search help.
2. Select the page. Tick the checkbox above the message list, at the top left. That selects every conversation on the page.
3. Select every match. If the search has more results than one page shows, Gmail adds a link near the top to select all conversations that match the search. Click it. This is the step people skip, and it's why they end up deleting 50 emails at a time when the sender sent thousands.
4. Delete. Click the trash can icon and confirm.

Google describes the select-and-delete part on its delete and recover page. One detail to know: the messages go to Trash and stay there for 30 days before Gmail removes them. If you need space back right away, open Trash and empty it. Until you do, they still count against your storage.

Protect the emails you want to keep#

A plain from: search grabs everything, including starred messages and receipts you might need. Narrow it before you delete:

• from:news@example.com -is:starred leaves starred messages alone.
• from:news@example.com older_than:1y selects only mail older than a year.
• from:news@example.com -label:receipts skips anything you've put under a label named receipts.

Look through the first page of results before you delete. Thirty seconds of scrolling beats searching Trash later.

If you deleted the wrong thing#

Open Trash from the left-hand menu (under More if you don't see it). Search inside Trash for the sender, tick the messages you want back, and use the Move to option to send them to your inbox. This only works for 30 days. After that Gmail removes them for good, so if you have any doubt, check Trash within a week or two. It's also worth glancing at the sender's address once more before you hit delete. A useful message from a bank or a school can end up in a pile of promotions that way.

Where the manual method falls short#

It deletes. It doesn't stop anything. Be clear about the limits before you rely on it.

• It doesn't unsubscribe you. The sender's next newsletter arrives tomorrow. You still have to find an unsubscribe link or use Gmail's Manage subscriptions, covered in our guide to unsubscribing in bulk.
• It's one address at a time. Companies often send from several addresses. You'll repeat the search for each one, or search by domain with from:@example.com.
• The phone app is awkward. In the Gmail app you can only select the messages that have loaded. There's no select-all across a whole search the way there is on the web, so a sender with thousands of emails takes many rounds. For big cleanups, use a computer.
• It's easy to catch things you meant to keep. Unless you add exclusions, starred and labeled mail goes too.
• There's no list of what you did. Undo means digging through Trash and moving things back by hand, and the clock runs out after 30 days.

For a one-off clear-out, the manual route is fine. If you're doing it for the fifteenth sender, it gets old.

The one-click way with Gnuke#

Gnuke is a Chrome extension that adds a bomb button to Gmail. Click it on a sender and two things happen:

1. You're unsubscribed. Gnuke sends the standard one-click unsubscribe request when the sender supports it. If it doesn't, Gnuke sends the unsubscribe email from your address. If that isn't an option either, it opens the sender's unsubscribe page for you. The result is reported honestly for each sender, such as "Unsubscribe requested" or "Open link to unsubscribe," so you know what actually happened.
2. Every email that sender ever sent you moves to Gmail's Trash. No search, no select-all link, no paging.

Things stay safe by design. Starred mail always stays. You can also choose to keep mail you've put in a label, mail marked important, and the sender's newest 1, 3 or 10 emails. Senders you mark as "always keep" are never offered for nuking. Undo for 30 days puts everything back, and Gnuke never deletes anything permanently.

Want the sender to stay gone? Add Block, and Gnuke creates a Gmail filter that sends that sender's future mail straight to Trash. Unblock removes it. The first time you use Block, Gnuke asks for the extra Gmail settings permission it needs to create the filter.

If you have a pile of senders, Clean up scans your newsletters and promos and ranks senders by how many emails they sent and how often you open them, including "Never opened" and "Quiet for 6+ months." Tick several and nuke them together. And if you'd rather clean from your couch, the phone app does the same thing straight from your phone to Gmail.

Gnuke talks to Gmail from your own browser. No Gnuke server sees your mail. See how it works or pricing: 10 nukes a month are free.

Which one should you use?#

Use the manual search if you're clearing one sender, you want to see exactly what goes, and you don't mind the extra steps. Use Gnuke if the sender will keep mailing you, if you have many senders, or if you want a 30-day Undo you don't have to build yourself.

Comparing tools? We looked at Gnuke vs Unroll.me, Gnuke vs Clean Email and Gnuke vs Trimbox.