# How do I get emails older than 12 months? — Adinand Email Cleaner

Last reviewed: September 23, 2026. HTML version: https://adinandemail.com/answers/get-emails-older-than-12-months

**Search `older_than:1y`.** Google documents the operator as "Search for emails older or newer than a time period. Use d (day), m (month), or y (year).", with `older_than:1y` as its own example (*Refine searches in Gmail*, read 23 September 2026 — https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7190). Type it in the Gmail search box on the web or the phone; there is no menu for it.

## Always give a unit

`older_than:12m` and `older_than:1y` cover the same span — twelve months is a year. What Google's description does not cover is a bare number: it names the three unit letters and nothing else, so `older_than:12` is not a documented form. Include the letter every time.

## Combinations that are actually useful

- `older_than:1y has:attachment larger:10M` — old and heavy. `larger:` and `has:attachment` are documented on the same Google page, with `larger:10M` as its example.
- `older_than:1y category:promotions` — a year of marketing, often the easiest year of mail to let go. Read it first all the same.
- `older_than:2y from:noreply@example.com` — everything one automated sender produced, before that sender existed in your attention.
- `older_than:1y -is:starred -from:me` — old mail you never starred and did not send yourself. Google warns that with a minus sign, "conversations with excluded criteria may still appear", because Gmail matches individual messages first — so a thread you starred can still show up.

## Before you act on ten years at once

Read the result before you touch it. Old does not mean unimportant: tax records, tenancy agreements, warranties, the receipt for something still under guarantee, and the account-recovery mail for services you have forgotten you use can all sit in exactly that range. Narrowing by sender or by category first is what turns a dangerous sweep into a safe one.

Deletion in Gmail is a two-stage thing, which helps here. Mail goes to Trash and can be recovered for up to 30 days; "After 30 days: The message is permanently deleted" (*Delete messages in Gmail*, read 23 September 2026 — https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7401) — [the timing in detail](https://adinandemail.com/answers/how-often-does-gmail-empty-trash) — so a mistake is recoverable, but only if you notice within the window.

## Why this search is worth running even if you delete nothing

It shows you the shape of the mail you have kept for a decade. If a handful of senders turn out to account for most of it, the clean-up is far smaller than it looked.

## Where we fit

[Adinand Email Cleaner](https://adinandemail.com/) does that shape-finding for you. It groups your Gmail by sender, with the measured size of each group added up from the per-message sizes Gmail reports, so a decade of archive becomes a list of names you can decide about one at a time. It works with Gmail, all the processing happens on your device, and it only ever asks Gmail for headers — never the contents of your messages. Free to try: up to 2,500 emails and 3 auto-trash rules, with 250 more emails added every month (unused monthly emails don't carry over).

Related: [Mass deleting in Gmail](https://adinandemail.com/answers/how-to-mass-delete-emails-gmail) · [Finding large emails](https://adinandemail.com/answers/find-large-emails-in-gmail) · [Gmail storage full](https://adinandemail.com/answers/gmail-storage-full) · [How to clean up Gmail](https://adinandemail.com/answers/how-to-clean-up-gmail)