Gmail’s Android app to introduce that “Select All” button you’ve wanted for years

If you’ve ever used Gmail’s web version, you know how handy the “Select all” button is, right? It’s that magical button that lets you select every single email with just one click, making your life a tad bit easier when you want to archive, mark emails as read, or do any other bulk actions. In fact, we’ve written a guide on how to do this. But here’s a puzzling thing: the Gmail Android app never had this functionality. Baffling, I know!

Before you roll your eyes at this omission like I often do, there’s some good news to be had. @AssembleDebug on X has spotted the “Select All” button in a potentially upcoming release of the Gmail for Android app, and it seems like it could finally become the lifesaver we’ve needed.

As shown in the photo, when you tap this shiny new select all button, it’ll immediately highlight the first 50 emails in your inbox. Because it grabs only 50 emails at a time from Google’s servers, you’ll still be limited in your mass deletion powers, but it’s better than tapping one at a time! After the first fifty, you can just tap again and again to select even more.

For those who like to hoard their emails (no judgment here), once they’re cached in the app, the “Select all” button will highlight ALL of them, regardless of whether it’s more than 50. If you accidentally go on a selecting spree, there’s a “Deselect all” button to save you from yourself.

If you’re like me and want to get to inbox zero as quickly as humanly possible, then this feature is going to be a game-changer. Honestly, it’s about time! It’s a little hard to believe we’ve been missing out on this for so long, but as usual, I’m not surprised. Let me know in the comments if you’ll be using this or not!