Mark all Your Gmail Messages as “Read” in One Go
Clean out annoying and unnecessary notifications
Gmail has become the primary email service for more than abillionpeople worldwide. That’s a lot of people who need a good mail interface and powerful mail management.
The good news is that Gmail is filled with tips and tricks that let power users quickly manage thousands of messages with ease. All it takes is a little knowledge of Gmail’s own internal commands.
Modern Gmail is now split across four different mailboxes. We havePrimary,Social,PromotionsandUpdates. If you are like most people, you’re probably getting hundreds of emails a day, with absolutely no hope of reading each one. Before you know it, you’ll have thousands and thousands of messages marked as “unread”.
This is a problem, because it means you have to rely on push notifications or obsessive manual checking to know if there are new messages waiting for your attention. Marking all your messages as “read” is the solution, but not as easy as it should be.
Sure, you can select all the messages on the page you’re currently viewing, but not the thousands of messages over hundreds of pages we quickly accumulate. Here’s how to clean out your notifications and unread emails.
Mark All Gmail Messages as “Read”
Please note that these instructions do not apply to the Gmail app, and have to be done via a browser.
First, navigate to your mailbox atwww.gmail.com.
Next we’re going to put a special search command into the search bar. Make sure to read my other post onGoogle search operators, most of which you can use for Gmail too. Type the following:
And hit enter. Note that this will give you all unread messages in the three main mailboxes I mentioned above. If you have unread messages that are automatically moved into a label, simply change the label frominboxto something else or just remove the entirelabel:inboxpart and type justis:unread, which will give you all unread emails everywhere.
Now,click this dropdown arrow,then select“All”
This will select all the messages on the current page, but we want all messages on all pages. So also clickSelect all conversations that match this search.
Now, simply click this icon to mark all messages as“Read”.
Now you’ll be asked to confirm this bulk action.
Now it’s time to bask in the sweet, sweet glow of having no unread message notifications. Enjoy!
Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications.Read Aseem’s Full Bio
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