How to Delete All Emails From One Sender in Gmail (Bulk and Auto-Delete Methods)

Introduction

While cleaning your inbox, you may need to mass-delete all emails from a single sender. This could be to remove spam emails or delete old emails that are no longer needed but are taking up storage space. Deleting these emails will create more space for newer emails and reduce inbox clutter.

Gmail allows for bulk deletion of emails. Additionally, you can use a custom Gmail filter to automate the deletion of future emails from a certain sender. However, clearing those emails from the Trash folder cannot be automated using Gmail alone. Several third-party tools such as Block Sender can help you with this task.

Without further ado, let's jump in to see how you can delete all messages from a certain sender in Gmail.

How to Delete All Emails From One Sender in Gmail

In this section, we'll discuss how to delete all emails from one sender on both the Gmail desktop and mobile app. If you want to delete both the existing and future incoming emails from this sender, skip to the next section. However, if you only want to delete existing emails, here's how you can achieve that:

On Desktop

1. Go to Gmail and log in to your account.
2. Click the button highlighted in the image below to open the search options.

3. In the From field, type the sender's email address whose emails you wish to delete from your account and click the "Search" button.

4. Select the checkbox at the top to select all emails.

This option only selects the emails shown on the current page. If there are more emails on the next pages, an option to select all matched emails will be displayed at the top.

5. Click the "Select all conversations that match this search" option to select all emails from the specific sender.
6. Delete the emails by clicking the "Trash" icon at the top.

7. Click "OK" to confirm the deletion of emails.

On Mobile (Android/iOS)

The process of deleting all emails from one sender on the Gmail mobile app is almost the same on the desktop. The only downside is that you cannot quickly select all emails at once as in the Gmail browser app. You will have to scroll all the way to the bottom to collectively select all emails. However, this will not take much time if there are not a lot of emails from the specific sender.

1. Open the Gmail mobile app.

2. In the search bar at the top, type the sender's email address using the "from" search operator, e.g., from:[email protected]. and press enter.

3. To select all emails, scroll until you reach the last email.

4. Long-press any email from the specific sender and tap "Select all" at the top.

5. Tap on the "Bin" icon, as shown in the image below.

How to Auto-Delete Emails From One Sender Using Gmail Filters

In the previous section, you learned how to delete all messages from a specific sender in Gmail. Gmail also allows you to set up a filter to automatically delete all incoming messages from a specific sender. This is much more convenient than manually deleting emails.

1. Click on the gear icon at the top to open Settings.
2. Select "See all settings".

3. Navigate to "Filters and Blocked Addresses".

4. Click "Create a new filter".
5. In the From field, type the email address of the sender whose emails you want to delete from your Gmail account.

6. Click "Create filter".
7. Select the "Delete it" and "Also apply filter to matching conversation" options.

8. Click "Create filter".

Once this filter is set up, any incoming emails from this specific sender will be automatically deleted by Gmail. This filter will also delete existing emails from this sender. This process may take long to complete if you have received a lot of emails from them.

How to Permanently Delete Emails From Trash Folder

Deleting emails will not immediately free up storage space as these emails are still kept in the Trash folder for 30 days. Gmail allows you to recover the deleted emails within this timeframe.

1. If your Gmail storage is full, you can manually clear the Trash folder to permanently delete the emails.
2. Open the Trash folder.
3. Click "Empty Trash now" to delete all emails.

4. Click "OK" to confirm the deletion.

Wondering if you can also automate this process using Gmail filters? Unfortunately, Gmail doesn't offer the option to permanently delete emails as they are received. However, you can use BlockSender - an email productivity tool that allows you to perform this action and much more.

Using Block Sender to Automatically and Permanently Delete Emails

In this tutorial, we'll explain how you can use BlockSender's Chrome extension to permanently delete emails from a certain sender upon receipt. You can use the web dashboard as well but the Chrome extension is much more convenient to block emails right from your inbox.

Download the BlockSender Chrome extension if you haven't already and start using it by linking your Gmail account. To permanently delete emails from a specific sender, follow the simple steps given below.

1. Log in to the Gmail desktop app.
2. Click on the "Block" icon at the top and select the "New Block" option from the dropdown.

3. Type the email address of the sender in the "Email to Block" field.
4. Select "Delete (skip trash)" from the next dropdown to permanently delete the emails when they arrive.

5. Click "Save".

Once this "block" is created, you will no longer need to remove deleted emails from the Trash folder as they will be permanently deleted by BlockSender.

Bonus Tips

• Unsubscribe First:
  While deleting newsletter and promotional emails that you never read, you should consider unsubscribing from these emails first. This way, those services will remove you from their mailing list and you will no longer receive emails from them. Using the Gmail unsubscribe button is the preferred way to unsubscribe from emails rather than using the unsubscribe link hidden at the bottom of the email which can be potentially malicious.

• Archive Instead of Deleting
  If you cannot decide whether or not to delete all emails from a certain sender because you might need those emails later, you can choose to archive them instead. This will remove those emails from your inbox but not delete them. You can still access them in your account whenever you want.

Conclusion

In this article, you learned how to delete all emails from one sender in Gmail. We discussed the process for both the desktop app and the mobile app. Mass deletion of emails is much simpler and quicker using the desktop app.

Deleting emails from the inbox doesn't free up space immediately unless they are removed from the Trash folder as well. Emails moved to the trash folder are auto-deleted after 30 days or you can do so yourself anytime to free up space quickly.

You can also automate the deletion of future emails received from the sender by setting up a Gmail filter. However, Gmail filters cannot permanently delete the emails. For this, you can leverage BlockSender, a third-party tool that can permanently delete certain incoming emails - saving you time.