Old emails hanging around in the ether aren’t something many people think about. Maybe we should, but where do you start if you opened an account potentially a decade or two ago? Rather than mass-delete and risk losing something valuable, I asked ChatGPT if it has a better idea for tidying up my own Gmail account. And it’s made the task feel far more controlled and manageable.

1. Unsubscribe from unwanted emails.

Go through newsletters and promotional emails you no longer read, and use the “Unsubscribe” link (or Gmail’s unsubscribe option when available). This reduces future clutter.

This is something I’m already doing. But if you’re not, this casual approach to daily tidiness can help cut down unwanted emails. Many emails from companies even have an ‘Unsubscribe’ button at the top, which you can press to avoid future contact. Doing this regularly will keep your emails focused on more important things.

2. Delete large or old emails.

Search for emails with large attachments using queries like:

• larger:10M
• older_than:2y
• has:attachment older_than:1y
• Review the results and delete anything you no longer need.

It’s not common enough knowledge that you can use Gmail’s advanced search parameters to highlight all kinds of forgotten emails that lurk in your inbox. “10M” above means 10MB, and more obviously, ‘y’ means year. It may be easier to do this on a desktop PC or laptop for visibility, but it also works on Gmail’s mobile or tablet apps to find emails that you no longer need.

3. Archive instead of keeping everything in your inbox.

• Archive emails you’ve finished with but may want to keep.
• They’ll still be searchable but won’t clutter your inbox.

More of an organizational tip, this. If you want to keep your inbox solely for relevant and recent emails, archiving makes a lot of sense. There’s no specific change to archived emails, other than they’re no longer in your inbox. And this structure can work well if you find yourself searching for emails with too many distracting (irrelevant) ones getting in the way.

4. Use labels and filters.

• Create labels (such as “Receipts,” “Travel,” or “Work”) and set up filters to automatically organize incoming messages.
• Skip the inbox for low-priority mail, or apply labels automatically.

Another tactic that helps keep things where you want them. Honestly, this is one that I’ve not used in some time, so a refresher is definitely needed! It’s also helpful if you’re receiving emails about an event – a gathering, a holiday, or another specific focus. Keeping all the related communication together makes life a lot easier.

5. Empty Spam and Trash.

Messages in these folders are usually deleted automatically after 30 days, but manually emptying them can free up storage sooner if they’re full.

The last and easiest. Gmail will automatically file emails to your spam folder, but I don’t regularly check or empty it. Checking it will ensure nothing is mislabeled as spam, while regular emptying of Spam and Trash is another solid cleanup tactic. Setting up a reminder for regular action will make this far quicker and easier going forward.

If your goal is to free up Google storage, you can also check your storage usage and identify what’s taking up space in Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos from your Google Account’s storage management page.

ChatGPT’s final bit of advice is also sensible. There is a unified storage capacity across your Google account. And this is part of the reason I wanted to sort my Gmail out in the first place – well, that and my general apathy towards my message backlog. And with the above tips, I’m happy that there are a few tools to lift the load of almost two decades’ worth of communications. Now I

About the Author

Kevin Pocock

Kevin has a broad interest and enthusiasm for consumer electronics, PCs, and all things consumer tech. And more than 17 years experience in tech journalism.