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Mass delete old email on Gmail preserving Special and Tagged ones

To mass delete old emails on Gmail type this search query in the search box of mail.google.com (or Gmail for Business):

mail.google.com

after:2017/01/01 before:2017/31/12 -has:userlabels -is:starred

You can use these filters in any language but remember to use the YYYY/DD/MM format for the data (Year/Day/Month) for the after and before filters.

This search will show you all emails between January, 1st and December, 31st 2017 that:

Haven’t any User Label
Aren’t starred (without Star)

Change dates according to the time period you want to cover and select the select all checkbox inside the header to select all items from the Gmail dashboard.

Optionally, you can select them all using the dedicated link that appears after the step above.

These two criteria are usually enough to don’t delete important e-mails but you can add more exclusion criteria adding a minus sign before any new filter, e.g. unread. However, if you don’t use Stars and Labels you have to double-check email in the list before deletion to prevent to delete useful data.

This approach is very useful in these two scenarios:

To free space on the Gmail mailbox when it’s almost full.
To delete old emails to comply with regulations like GDPR at the end of their usable life.

Happy houseworks!

https://web.archive.org/web/20180426000000*/https://mail.google.com