Mail User Guide
Use Junk Mail preferences in Mail to change options for managing junk mail and blocked senders.
To change these preferences in the Mail app on your Mac, choose Mail > Preferences, then click Junk Mail.
To add an entry to Safe senders and recipients, enter the email address or domain that you want to mark as safe in the Enter a sender or domain here text box, and then press Enter or select the Add icon next to the text box. For example, to mark all email from addresses that end in contoso.com as safe, enter contoso.com in the text box. To mark a specific person as safe, enter that person's.
Junk Mail Behaviors
Option | Description |
|---|---|
Enable junk mail filtering | Turn Mail’s junk mail filter on or off. If your email account filters junk mail on the mail server, messages might be moved to the Junk mailbox even when this option isn’t selected. |
Mark as junk mail, but leave it in my Inbox | Highlight junk mail with color and leave it in your Inbox. These messages contain a banner across the top with a button to confirm whether the message is junk. This setting is useful for monitoring what Mail considers junk mail. |
Move it to the Junk mailbox | Mail automatically moves messages that it considers junk to the Junk mailbox. This setting is useful when you’re confident that Mail correctly identifies junk mail and you don’t want those messages in your inbox. |
Perform custom actions | Refine the junk mail filter by adding conditions to identify junk mail, and actions such as deleting those messages. When you select this option, you can set advanced criteria to identify junk mail. |
The following types of messages are exempt from junk mail filtering | Don’t filter messages from senders who are in the Contacts app, you’ve previously corresponded with, or know your full name. |
Trust junk mail headers in messages | Use any junk mail detection already present in messages you receive. Mail uses this information to more accurately identify junk mail. |
Filter junk mail before applying my rules | Mail runs the junk mail filter before it runs any rules that you created. This option ensures that all messages, even those that your rules might move out of the Inbox, are evaluated by the junk filter. |
Reset | Restore the default criteria for identifying junk mail. Use this option only if Mail no longer handles junk mail as you expect. Resetting the filter deletes everything that Mail has learned from you about junk mail. |
Advanced | Set criteria that messages must meet to be identified as junk mail. This option is available only when you select “Perform custom actions.” |
Blocked
Option | Description |
|---|---|
Enable blocked mail filtering | Block email messages from specific senders and control what happens to the messages when they arrive. |
Mark as blocked mail, but leave it in my Inbox | Indicate a sender is blocked but leave their messages in your Inbox. These messages contain a banner across the top with a button to display the Blocked pane in Mail preferences, where you can manage blocked senders. |
Move it to the Trash | Automatically move messages from blocked senders to the Trash mailbox, so you don’t see their messages in your Inbox. |
Email address list | The list of email addresses whose messages you’re blocking. |
Add , Remove | Add an email address to the list of blocked senders, or remove one. You can also add an email address to the list or remove it by clicking the arrow next to the sender’s name in a message, then choosing Block Contact or Unblock Contact. |
If you are like me, your Gmail account is probably filled with thousands of unwanted messages begging to be deleted. And the situation gets worse if you have merged multiple Gmail accounts.
After every few months, I have to do some spring cleaning to keep my Gmail account clutter free. Honestly, it’s a rather difficult job. You simply can’t risk deleting important emails, and going through each email when there are over ten thousand emails is unpractical.
If you are dealing with a cluttered Gmail account, then I can help make things a little easier for you. Below I have listed 3 easy ways to bulk delete emails in Gmail without too much effort.
Use search operators to bulk delete specific emails
Let’s start with a safer option that might require a few minutes of learning, but ultimately, you’ll be able to safely delete thousands of unwanted emails with just a few clicks. The search bar at the top of your Gmail account is very smart. There are dedicated search operators for Gmail that will allow you to search for specific type of emails and delete them.
For example, you can search emails by size to delete emails with big attachments, or you can search for old emails and delete them.
There are dozens of Gmail search operators, and lucky for you we have a list of all the Gmail search operators along with examples. Just check the list and you will surely be able to find an operator to find the emails you want to delete. If you don’t find the right operator, you can also let us know in the comments and we will help.
To delete the emails you have searched for, click on the “Select” button in the top toolbar. This will only select emails on the current page. To select all the emails, click on the “Select all conversations that match this search” button that comes up after clicking the “Select” button.
Once all the items are selected, click on the “Delete” button in the top toolbar.
Bulk delete Gmail emails under labels
You can also delete emails under a specific label. For example, if you don’t find the social emails to be of use, then you can simply go to the Social section of the inbox and delete all the emails there.
The deletion process is same as above. You just go to the label you want to completely wipe and select all of the emails there (check the instructions above). Click on the “Delete” button and the emails will be deleted.
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Bulk delete all emails in Gmail
Bulk Email Mac
This is a nuclear option and I won’t recommend it. However, if you just want to start over and get rid of everything in your Gmail account, it’s rather easy. Gmail has an “All Mail` label that lists all the emails in your Gmail account, including Inbox, Sent items, Drafts and other labels.
In the left-hand panel, click on the “More” button and you’ll some more labels.
You’ll find the “All Mail” label there. Open it up and then delete all the emails like we did in the above two methods.
Note: All the deleted emails go into the “Trash” label. Here they can be either recovered or get permanently deleted automatically after 30 days. You should also delete emails from Trash if you don’t plan to recover them. And if you accidentally deleted an important email, there is still a chance you may be able to recover the email.
Conclusion
I always use the Gmail search operators to delete unwanted emails, and so far, I haven’t faced any problems. You should stick to the search operators if you don’t want to delete something important. And if possible, try quickly reviewing the emails before deleting them. Do let us know in the comments if you managed to declutter your Gmail account.