Scheduled Gmail cleanup - auto-delete spam, promotions, social & trash
# Scheduled Gmail Cleanup – Auto-Delete Spam, Promotions, Social & Trash to save the Gmail space and time
Managing Gmail manually can be tedious and time-consuming. Spam, Promotions, Social, and Trash folders quickly fill up with unwanted emails, taking up valuable storage and creating clutter. This workflow provides a simple yet powerful **Gmail automation** for efficient **email management**, helping you maintain a cleaner inbox with zero daily effort.
This workflow is triggered by a **Schedule node** that runs once per day (customizable). It then uses multiple **Gmail nodes** to:
1. **Fetch Spam Emails** – Identify all emails in the Spam folder.
2. **Fetch Promotions Emails** – Collect promotional messages from Gmail’s Promotions category.
3. **Fetch Social Emails** – Pull emails from the Social tab.
4. **Fetch Trash Emails** – Find all items already marked as trash.
5. **Delete Fetched Emails** – Automatically delete the emails retrieved from these categories.
By default, the workflow deletes the selected emails permanently. Once removed, they are not recoverable.
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## Key Benefits
- Automatically deletes junk, spam, and promotional emails daily
- Keeps Gmail storage under control and prevents hitting Google’s limits
- Saves time by eliminating manual cleanup tasks
- Helps you achieve and maintain **Inbox Zero**
- Simple “set and forget” automation — once activated, it runs in the background
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## How to Use
1. Import this workflow into your n8n account.
2. Connect your Gmail account using **Gmail OAuth2 credentials**.
3. Open each Gmail node and select your Gmail credential.
4. Adjust the **Schedule Trigger** if you want to run it more or less frequently (default: once per day).
5. Save and activate the workflow.
Once set up, your Gmail inbox will automatically stay clean and organized every day.
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## Who Is This For?
- Professionals who want to focus only on important emails
- Productivity enthusiasts striving for Inbox Zero
- Users approaching Gmail’s **15GB storage limit**
- Teams managing shared inboxes with heavy email flow
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## Customising this workflow
- **Schedule**: Adjust the Schedule Trigger to run hourly, daily, or weekly.
- **Categories**: Remove nodes for folders you want to keep, or add filters to only delete emails older than a certain number of days.
- **Deletion Settings**: Modify the Gmail Delete node to move emails to Trash instead of permanent deletion if you prefer a safer cleanup.
