If you’re not the zero-type inbox – which I certainly am not – you may sometimes rely on the “Select all conversations matching this search” option in Gmail to read, archive, or delete hundreds or thousands of messages at once.

Except that we can’t do that anymore, nor the number of angry Gmail users we’ve spotted. The option is gone and gone.

Instead, we see a navigation bar with a few shortcut buttons when we’re looking, like this:

Google hasn’t responded to our requests for comment, so we’re not sure yet if we’re looking at an official new Gmail UI fix, a quick trial, or maybe even a bug. Gmail Help thread from six days ago So far gone unanswered.

Google’s Gmail support team apparently wasn’t aware of the change; On at least two occasions, They have provided instructions for the readers It no longer works.

For now, if you want to read, archive, or delete more than one page worth conversations at once, you may want to use a filter instead, using Filter also applies to matching conversations Button, then delete the filter after the fact.

I just tried it with some newsletter, and it still seems to work. It’s just a hassle.