How to Automatically Delete Spam Email from Gmail

If you use Gmail – or Google Workspace (formerly Google Apps) – based email, you might find, over time, you start to collect a lot of spam in your “Spam” (junk) folder.

In particular, if you use an email client, via IMAP, and you like to use your own junk filter on email on your system, it can sometimes make sense to clear spam from your Gmail automatically.

The steps below describe how to do just that.

WARNING using these rules will automatically delete everything in your Gmail spam folder before you look at it. Remember that this may include email you actually wanted to receive. It’s not necessarily a good idea to do this, unless you are confident that you’ll only receive spam in your spam folder. Something real usually slips in there.

How to Automatically Delete Spam Email from Gmail

Step 1) Login to your Gmail in Webmail – at https://mail.google.com/

Step 2) Click “Settings” in the top right (Click the Cog symbol at the top right, then “Settings” from the dropdown – picture below)

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Step 3) Click on the “Filters” tab (pictured below)

Step 4) Click on “Create a new Filter”, and under the part where it says “Has the words” enter the following text “is:spam” and then click “create filter with this search”:

Step 5) Doing this will trigger a warning message. You are happy to continue, so click “OK”.

Step 6) Next, you need to tell Gmail what to do with these spam emails. We’d like it to “skip inbox” and to “delete”, tick both, then click “create filter” (note you may also wish to select this to apply to conversations already matching this, as in my example, below):

 

DONE! This will filter out all of your spam and automatically put it into the bin as it is received. This should mean it doesn’t download to your system, if you use IMAP. Note that this does mean any spam you get that isn’t marked as spam by Gmail may slip through, and also that anything you actually wanted which is marked as spam by Gmail will be deleted and you’ll never see it! Use with those precautions in mind.

Leave a comment below if this worked – or didn’t work- for you to automatically remove your spam and junk email from Gmail with a mail filter.

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5 thoughts on “How to Automatically Delete Spam Email from Gmail”

  1. Gmail filters are great source act as firewall for the spam messages and emails, no doubt these unwanted emails are annoying, but as you told the careful use of filters can permanently prevent us from these mails.

    Reply
  2. Thanks for this. Only problem is that it’s not ‘deleted’, it’s just moved to the bin. I would like all spam deleted so that I don’t see it and can’t see it. With this method, the spam just moves from one place to another?

    Can you help?

    Bye,
    Alex

    Reply
    • The primary reason people want to do this is to prevent mail syncing to their client. Its not possible to reduce the 30 day automatic deletion of trash. You can manually delete everything in your trash. If you are having problems with quotas here, its usually big attachments or large Google Drive files. Personally, I would leave things in trash in case you want them back! Storage is cheaper than the time spent resolving accidentally deleted items.

      Reply
  3. I am trying to make do possible to the automatic deletion of trash. If one can try to do this and get success then this may provide relief to all users and also get relieved from doing such time-consuming things manually.

    Reply

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