What you need to know
- More Gmail users are discovering the "Select All" option in the latest version of the app on Android.
- This has been verified across multiple devices and Google accounts, indicating a widespread rollout of the feature.
- A few users initially spotted the "Select All" button in September, though it's only now that the feature appears for a wider set of users.
Google has finally rolled out a much-requested feature that lets you select multiple emails at once in the Android app.
According to Android Police, Gmail for Android has rolled out a new 'Select all' option. But there's a caveat: It only grabs 50 emails at a time, so your mass deletion capability is a bit limited, but it beats tapping emails one by one.
Once you hit the initial 50-email mark, you can keep tapping to select more as additional emails load up. But here's a pro tip: scroll to the end of your list before tapping Select all to really select all the emails in that view at once.
In September, eagle-eyed users caught wind of this new feature, with some hidden flags hinting that Google was cooking something up. But it was playing hard to get until recently, when more and more users began spotting it, and began sounding off on Reddit. We've got it on one of our devices too, so it looks like the change is hitting a broad audience right now.
To scoop up all emails in one go, just long-press on any email or tap the sender's avatar. After that, tap the Select all button at the top of your screen. Then, you can do a bunch of things, like delete, archive, label, or mark as read, once you've got those emails selected. This feature works across all views—search results, inboxes, and categories.
Previously, handling emails on Gmail for Android used to be a bit of a headache, especially when you wanted to batch-select emails. Unlike the desktop version, which had this feature for a long time, the mobile app made you go through the tedious process of tapping each email one by one to get things done.
On the other hand, a lot of email apps out there already have this option, so it's a bit weird that Google didn't toss it into the Gmail app right from the get-go.
