Hi Ken and all.. I have used this and it works. Only thing I would
recommend is deleting the filter after you accomplish the deletion. Hope
this can help some people.
Linda
How to Bulk-Delete Gmail Messages
By
Rick Broida
, PCWorld
Aug 22, 2011 1:11 PM
print
Gmail
Reader Al wants to know “how to delete several thousand messages in the
Gmail inbox,
all at the same time.”
As Al notes, Gmail lets you select and delete only a screen’s worth of
mail at a
time. So how can you work past that? How can you bulk-delete Gmail messages?
The trick lies in creating a filter that deletes mail older than
whatever date you
specify. Here’s how:
1. Open your Web browser, head to Gmail, and sign into your account.
2. Next to the Search the Web button up top, click
Create a filter
.
3. In the "Has the words" field, type
before:2010/01/01
. That's just an example date; it would delete all messages received
prior to January
1 of last year. You can use any date you want, as long as it conforms to
the format
YYYY/MM/DD.
4. Click
Next step
.
5. Check the box marked
Delete it
, then check the box for
Also apply filter to ### conversations belo
w. (Tip: If you want to preserve your mail while still getting it out of
your inbox,
choose
Skip the inbox (Archive it)
instead.)
6. Finally, click
Create Filter
. Depending on how many messages meet the filter criteria, the deletion
process may
take a minute or two.
Just make sure you really want to permanently delete all that mail.
Unless you’re
approaching your storage limit, the smarter move is to archive it
instead. That way
it’ll still be available when your run searches, but won’t clutter up
your inbox.
Contributing Editor
Rick Broida
_______________________________________________
ATI (Adaptive Technology Inc.)
A special interest affiliate of the Missouri Council of the Blind
http://moblind.org/membership/affiliates/adaptive_technology
