Gmail FAQ: Deleting an Individual Email

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Updated December 19, 2019

Gmail thinks in conversations. This is great as it lets you see each message in its context with precursors and follow-ups. This is also great as it lets you trash entire conversations with but a click (on the Delete icon).

Delete the Message, Keep the Conversation

Sometimes, however, deleting entire conversations in one swoop may not be what you want. What if there's a particular message that is really not worthy of belonging to that conversation? What if Gmail has lumped together messages that don't go together well, some of them ripe for deletion?

How to Delete One Email from a Thread Gmail

To delete just one message (even from a conversation) in Gmail:

Open the conversation that contains the message you want to delete.
Expand the desired message if you cannot yet see it.
Select the down (More) arrow next to the reply button in the message's title bar. If you see no Reply and no arrow, select More Options.
Select Delete this message from the menu that comes up.

Restore a Deleted Message from a Thread

If you inadvertently delete the wrong message from a conversation, you can restore an email to a thread.

Open the conversation from which you deleted an email.
Scroll to the bottom of the thread and look for a link that says 1 deleted message in this conversation. View message or delete forever.
Select View Message and then select Restore Message.
The message will be restored to the conversation.