# How to Automatically Purge Emails Under Specific Labels in Gmail \[Hacks\]

I am sure, there are so many of us who gets annoyed by their messy inbox. As for myself; I prefer to read email that is actually sent to me by some real human…

Canonical: https://www.ruhanirabin.com/automatically-purge-gmail-labels/
Author: Ruhani Rabin
Published: 2013-10-10T13:25:35.000Z
Updated: 2023-12-29T00:05:35.000Z

I am sure, there are so many of us who gets annoyed by their messy inbox. As for myself; I prefer to read email that is actually sent to me by some real human being. But in this social network life, almost 70% of the email are about notifications, newsletters and updates.

Even though Gmail Tabs helps in some sort of way. The tabs still isn’t a complete solution. And social notifications and newsletters can flood your mailbox by taking up a lot of space.

How do we go about this? Simple – I am just going to sort/filter some emails under a specific label (e.g. “Newsletters”), and I am going to purge these emails under the label; automatically, at a period of time.

### There are 3 steps of making this

1. Identify and sort emails under a specific label
2. Create a Gmail Script that would purge them after a period of time
3. Setup trigger to run that script for the specific Gmail account

### Step 1

I am just going to sort out all the newsletter type of emails under a label called “**Newsletters**“. To do this, I need to create a **filter** in Gmail that would sort these emails in  this label.

* Open your Gmail .. and at the Search box type “**unsubscribe**” (without the quotes). Then click Search. You will notice almost all the newsletters are listed using this keyword (Tips!).\
  ![Search for Unsubscribe](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Search1-550x318.jpg)
* Now, use the “**Show Search option**” on the right of the search box. Yes, click that **little grey arrow** to see the search options. At the right side of that drop down box, there is a option to **create a filter** with that search.\
  ![Search Options](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Search2.jpg)
* Select the options for the Filter – as you can see below.\
  ![Create Filter with these Options](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/filter1.jpg)
* Once the Filter and Label is created, we can move on to the next step.

### Step 2

Now, we are going to create the script that will be able to delete emails under specific label (or labels) on a schedule.

* Open **drive.google.com** while you are already logged in to Gmail
* Click on “**Create**” button in Drive. If you can’t see “Script” option under create, click on “**Connect More Apps**” option. Find and connect the app “**Google Apps Script**”. Once this is installed, we would be able to see the **Create Script** option in Google Drive.\
  ![connect Script in Google Drive](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/connect-Script-in-Google-Drive-550x206.jpg)
* Now, Click Create and create a **blank script**, which would look similar as you can see below. From File menu you can rename the project as you wish. For our example, we are using the name “**Auto Purge Gmail Labels**”.\
  ![Blank Google Drive Script](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Blank-Google-Drive-Script.jpg?resize=391%2C245)

Here is the code you need to replace the sample code in the code editor. (TIP: This piece of code is design to handle multiple labels at the same time. You might want to create another label to filter the notifications too)

\[code lang=”js”]\
function multipleLabels() {\
var myLabels = {‘Newsletters’: \"1d\", ‘Label2’: \"1d\", ‘Label3’: \"1d\"};\
var batchSize = 100; // Process up to 100 threads at once\
for(aLabel in myLabels)\
{\
var threads = GmailApp.search(‘label:’+aLabel+’ older_than:’+myLabels\[aLabel]+”);\
for (j = 0; j \< threads.length; j+=batchSize) {\
GmailApp.moveThreadsToTrash(threads.slice(j, j+batchSize));\
}\
}\
}\
\[/code]

You can make a copy of this script (From File > Make a copy) at **my [Google Drive Hosted Script](https://script.google.com/d/1r1pR3Y5hJWJ3p4JZtCA0BtXiQvNenVVJdp42pNdPj85nG-oPbAp4oYNV/edit?usp=sharing "Get a copy of the Gmail Script")**.

Take a note on this part – **var myLabels = {‘Newsletters’: “1d”, ‘Notifications’: “1d”}; **

The line above – **Newsletters** and **Notifications** are the label names. **1d** represents the period of emails to keep. So, this script will delete the emails which is older than one day.

Click on the **Play** button on the toolbar to test out the project, Google will ask for **Authorization** at this step.

![script authorization](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/authorization1-550x311.jpg)

Click **Continue** button to set permissions. Click **Accept** button on the next permissions dialog.

![Accept Permission](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/authorization2.jpg)

We’re done at step 2, moving on to step 3.

### Step 3

We need to setup the **trigger** to execute this script. Click on **Resources > Current project’s triggers** option to set it up.

![Trigger Script on Interval](https://cdn.ruhanirabin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/trigger-550x211.jpg)

Once we have setup the trigger, it will **automatically** run on that interval.

Yes, that is about it. **Set it up once and forget about it**. Now you will have more cleaner mailbox at Gmail. You can create additional labels. Add them to this script to clean additional labels on interval too. Have fun!