GreaseMonkey Develops Gmail Delete Button Script

The absence of a delete button from Gmail’s available action buttons can be puzzling to some. However, Google does not want people to delete their emails and this is made known by the claim “Don’t throw anything away. 2297.829967 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message.”

But, the lack of delete button (you have to select the function from a drop-down menu) seems to stick in some users’ craw. Because of the desire to delete with one push of a button, a thoughtful user at Arantius.com developed a Greasemonkey script that adds the missing delete button, placing it next to the Gmail archive button.

For those who don’t know, Greasemonkey is, according to mozdev.org, “a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML (“user scripts”) to any web page to change its behavior.” By developing the appropriate delete button script, users can now implement this change on their Gmail account, provided they want to attempt it. The delete button scriptwriter also issued a warning about using the script, which says:

Warning: this is of course not official gmail code. I offer no warranty express or implied on this script. Some users have reported temporary lockouts of their accounts when using this script. I have created updated versions to ameliorate these problems and strive to work further on that, with anyone willing to do help. Use it at your own risk.

To download the Greasemonkey script, click here.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.