In gmail, you can select multiple emails and apply an action (such as archiving) to all of them at once. we’ll show you how to select all emails and specific emails by their status in the web version of gmail.
there are many reasons to make a selection of several emails in gmail. maybe you want to archive all your unread emails. or maybe you want to forward all your emails as an attachment to someone.
You can select all emails in the web version of Gmail, which you can access from your Windows, Mac, Linux or Chromebook computer. the gmail mobile app for iphone, ipad and android does not allow you to select all emails at once.
how to select all emails on screen in gmail
one type of selection is to select all the emails displayed on a single page in gmail.
To do this, first launch gmail in a web browser on your computer. Sign in to your account if you haven’t already.
In the gmail interface, from the sidebar on the left, select the folder you want to select emails from. can be any folder that appears in the sidebar (including “inbox”, “postponed”, “sent”, and “spam”)
Emails from the selected folder will appear to the right of the folder list. In the toolbar at the top of these emails, select the “select” option (a square icon). this is the first icon on the toolbar.
gmail will select all emails displayed on the current page. At the top of these emails, you’ll see a message that says “all x conversations on this page are selected”, where “x” is the number of selected emails.
and this is how you select all your emails on screen in gmail!
To select more emails, change an option in the gmail settings to display more emails on a single page. To do this, from the top right corner of the gmail site, select the “settings” option (gear icon).
in the “settings” menu, in the “quick settings” section, select “see all settings”.
gmail will display your full account settings. here at the top, click the “general” tab.
on the “general” tab, click the “max page size” dropdown menu. then choose the number of emails gmail should display on a single page. you can choose 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 or 100.
when you have made a selection, scroll down the page to the “general” tab and click “save changes”.
gmail now displays the selected number of emails on a single page. To select all these emails on screen, use the same “select” option you used earlier.
how to select all emails in gmail
gmail also allows you to select all your emails and not just the ones displayed on a single page.
To make this selection, from the left sidebar on the gmail site, select the folder you want to select all emails from.
at the top of the email list, from the toolbar, select the “select” option (a square icon).
gmail will select all your emails on screen. To select emails that are not displayed on the current page, from the top of your email list, click the “select all x conversations in folder” option (where “x” is the number of emails that are in your selected folder).
and that’s it. gmail will display a message saying “all x conversations in the folder are selected”, confirming that all emails in the chosen folder are selected.
how to select emails by their status in gmail
With gmail’s advanced selection feature, you can select emails that have a certain status. for example, you can select all unread or read emails in your account.
To use this feature, start Gmail and choose the folder you want to select emails from.
at the top of your email list, right next to the “select” option, click the down arrow icon.
You will see multiple options to select your emails. choose one of these:
- all – this selects all emails on screen in your current folder.
- none – this deselects any selected email in your current folder.
- read: this only selects your read emails.
- unread: this selects your unread emails.
- featured – This selects emails that you have assigned a star to.
- unfeatured – This selects all emails that you have not assigned a star.
and gmail will only select the type of email you choose!
what can you do with the selected emails?
Once you select the emails in your gmail account, you can apply various actions to them. these actions are available at the top of the email list.
related: how to mark emails as read in gmail
the available actions are:
- archive: use this to archive all selected emails.
- report spam: this marks the selected emails as spam .
- delete – this deletes the selected emails.
- mark as unread – choose this to mark the emails selected as unread.
- snooze: select this to snooze your emails.
- add to tasks: this creates a task for your selected emails in google tasks.
- move to: choose this to move the selected emails to a folder.
- tags: use this to apply a label selected emails.
Next to the “labels” option, there are three dots you can click to open the “more” menu. this menu has more actions you can perform on your emails:
- mark as read – this marks the selected emails as read.
- mark as unread – this marks the emails selected as unread.
- mark as important: marks the selected emails as important.
- mark as unimportant: mark selected emails as unimportant.
- add star: assign a star to selected emails.
- filter messages like these – Find emails that are like the selected emails .
- mute – Use this to mute the selected emails. this way gmail will not notify you of replies to selected email threads.
- forward as attachment – this allows you to forward the selected email as an attachment .eml.
and this is how you bulk select or curate your gmail account. feel free to use these methods to select the type of email you want!
If you’re moving from one email account to another, Google makes it easy to import all your old emails into the new account. see our guide on how to do it.
related: how to import an old email account to gmail