How to delete all emails on iPhone

colefromfergus wrote:

Seriously deleting 3000 emails will take me over an hour at least and I’ve done this every time I got a new iPhone.

If you follow the instructions that myndlis gives (see Oct 3, 2017 3:07 PM), you'll only need to select one random email to delete ALL of your emails.

To be specific, myndlis posted the following:

"It's a glitch and it works!
Open the mailbox you decided to delete, press Edit at the top right corner, select one random email, then press and hold "Move" and while you hold it, unselect the email previously selected. When you release the "Move" button, then you can choose to move all mail to trash or another folder. Voilá!

Regards."

I followed the instructions, and it worked just as it has for other people as well.

The thing is, you might not think that all of your emails have been selected when you start with just one random email. But, if you literally follow each step of the instructions, then ALL of your emails will be deleted at the same time.

If what you're looking for is a button to select all mail at one time and then delete all mail at once, that doesn't exist. The above advice was correct in that if you choose edit, you can then select each message, but you have to select each email by tapping the round button next to each message individually. It's usually easier to use your laptop or PC to delete mail in bulk.

Again:

EDIT > Select one random email > Press and Hold "MOVE" > while Holding "MOVE", unselect email > Release "MOVE" > Move to Trash or other folder.

Works on iOS 11.1

It's a glitch and it works!
Open the mailbox you decided to delete, press Edit at the top right corner, select one random email, then press and hold "Move" and while you hold it, unselect the email previously selected. When you release the "Move" button, then you can choose to move all mail to trash or another folder. Voilá!

Regards.

Gandalf47 wrote:

When you have 1007 emails due to an illness and an inability to delete in real time, a less snarky answer would be preferred, at least by me. Like the one below, which actually works. While your answer is technically correct, if you are not open to anything but the commonly-known solutions, you'll stay one step behind. Glitch or not, the one below works in one second.

If you did not mean it in a snarky way, I am sorry i took it that way, but the question implied that they wanted to delete all there mails at once. Why else would we end up here?

I don't think that welafever's answer posted 6 months ago was snarky, and I don't think it was intended to be. The original question did not say how many emails needed to be deleted. If it was 10, or even 100, that would be an effective way and would have given the user a chance to review what they were deleting. If you read more of the 7 page thread you will find suggestions for dealing with larger numbers of emails that need mass deletion. By far the easiest way is to log in to the email provider's webmail portal, or use the mail client on a computer. Either will have a "select all" option along with a Delete All. There's also a method that takes advantage of a "quirk" in the iOS mail program to move all mail to the Trash, which is essentially the same as deleting it. This last is described in the 3rd "Helpful" post at the top of page 1.

Yet another option is to get a mail client from the App Store that has more features than the built-in mail app. Most of Apple's built in apps are rather basic; intentionally, I think, so as not to compete with 3rd party developers. I don't use most of the built-ins; I have App Store sourced calculators, calendar app (the built-in is really awful), clock app, mail apps, weather app, stocks app, Notes app, currency conversion app, voice recorder, browsers, and many more (260 3rd party apps total).

Hi

This is a great trick and it works.

Go to your e mails

Select Edit

Select/highlight one email

press move and while KEEPING your finger on 'move' un highlight the selected e mail

Select the trash button and BOOM they are gone!

Good luck

If you go to your email, in the top right corner there is an edit button. once you hit that, you can select every piece of email you have and one of the options is to delete.

1. Go to your email providers webmail, select all, select DELETE
2. Open the account in the mail app on your computer, right click on any entry in the list and choose Select All, and hit the Delete key

It seems that your email is still on your email client's server, which is likely why they're reappearing on your iPhone.

As such, and I'm quoting, "Login to your email provider's website and delete the email messages you want to delete. Make sure they are removed from the trash/delete mail folders as well. The results should sync to your iPhone."

Source: https://forums.imore.com/iphone-5/322387-why-do-my-deleted-emails-keep-coming-ba ck.html

If you read some of the thread there are posted workarounds for Delete All.

If you are using the Outlook app and not Apple's email app you should have a delete all option in the app. If not, you need to take that up with Microsoft, who wrote the app.

Another option is to use your email provider's webmail interface and delete them there.

If you know anyone with a computer, you can access the iCloud Mail account via www.icloud.com Sign in with Apple ID and Password and manage the iCloud account messages there.

If memory serves, there once was a delete all. It caused significant angst when people accidentally deleted all mail by mistake. So they went with the system they have in place now. For someone like me, I just keep up with my mailbox, or if I lose track, log into my mail via my laptop and manage the mail message there. Easy, actually.

As it's been answered before with this same question, but for a quick reference here, in your case you'll need to delete your email on your email server before deleting it on your iPhone or iPod. Otherwise, as you already know, your emails will return as soon as you sync with your email server.

To avoid this extra step for anybody who has the same problem, regularly cleaning out the inbox on your email server should do the trick. If you don't want to delete those emails, just archive them in a folder of your choice.

My iPhone has an Edit button in the message list screen. Just where it's always been in the upper right corner of the list screen.

The lack of the ability to delete all emails in a few easy steps is one of the biggest disappointments with Apple. The Devs appear to change their minds at every release. There is a great clip showing it can take 5 minutes to delete 450 emails. Bring back the delete all button, please.