Clever ideas for deleting only some old e-commerce emails?
October 13, 2023 9:46 AM Subscribe
Like many people, I've had a Gmail account for a very long time, and it's starting to get pretty full. Is there a way to find all of my emails from a specific e-commerce company that will allow me to delete most without deleting the subset that contain order confirmations?
I know the tips and tricks for identifying emails with large attachments so those can be sorted, but I'd also like to get rid of old e-commerce emails that I don't need anymore. However, I find it really handy to be able to go back and figure out what size X I ordered, or when I last purchased a Y. I'm sure there's no automated way to do this, but I thought folks here might have some tips and tricks for finding these kinds of emails. For instance, is there a way for me to search my email for all messages containing "CompanyName" but exclude the ones that also contain "Order Confirmation"? It wouldn't be hard for me to figure out the list of companies that I need to narrow in on.
I know the tips and tricks for identifying emails with large attachments so those can be sorted, but I'd also like to get rid of old e-commerce emails that I don't need anymore. However, I find it really handy to be able to go back and figure out what size X I ordered, or when I last purchased a Y. I'm sure there's no automated way to do this, but I thought folks here might have some tips and tricks for finding these kinds of emails. For instance, is there a way for me to search my email for all messages containing "CompanyName" but exclude the ones that also contain "Order Confirmation"? It wouldn't be hard for me to figure out the list of companies that I need to narrow in on.
Best answer: Google has a cheat sheet of terms you can use in the search box to find mails.
The most important thing, which of course is not on this sheet, is using a minus "-" in front of an expression to exclude it.
So you can try something like from:companyName -"Order Confirmation" and it should find all mails coming from CompanyName but skip anything with the exact term "Order Confirmation" in it. Because the quotes group things together.
Once you've found a term that works, you can click the box at the top to select all mails that match and bulk delete them.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:09 AM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
The most important thing, which of course is not on this sheet, is using a minus "-" in front of an expression to exclude it.
So you can try something like from:companyName -"Order Confirmation" and it should find all mails coming from CompanyName but skip anything with the exact term "Order Confirmation" in it. Because the quotes group things together.
Once you've found a term that works, you can click the box at the top to select all mails that match and bulk delete them.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:09 AM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Are they all in your inbox? I would probably work from the other angle and get all the order emails tagged with something like “order” and archive them. Then you can search for the company name and include in:inbox. That will exclude the ones you have archived.
posted by soelo at 10:22 AM on October 13, 2023
posted by soelo at 10:22 AM on October 13, 2023
Using Thunderbird email app with IMAP connection to gmail will give you more sorting and filtering options.
posted by Sophont at 10:34 AM on October 13, 2023
posted by Sophont at 10:34 AM on October 13, 2023
A lot of the times the promotional emails come from a different address than the order confirmation emails; you can check to see if that's the case and if so delete all emails from the promotional address by searching on it.
posted by foxfirefey at 10:38 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by foxfirefey at 10:38 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lots of major retailers like Amazon and Target also keep a record of your purchases on your profile/account page
They also quietly throw away the details of old orders after a few years, so don't count on them being there forever.
posted by Lanark at 10:38 AM on October 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
They also quietly throw away the details of old orders after a few years, so don't count on them being there forever.
posted by Lanark at 10:38 AM on October 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I'd figure out how to identify the ones you want to keep and label/tag them 'mine' - which you can do in a bunch of steps if you need to. Then you can simply exclude the tagged ones from your delete search with -label:mine.
posted by gible at 8:59 PM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by gible at 8:59 PM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
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Lots of major retailers like Amazon and Target also keep a record of your purchases on your profile/account page, so you could probably just toss all their emails with impunity.
posted by mochapickle at 9:57 AM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]