03-14-2008, 08:54 AM

Let's say I'm reading on my email on my Mac. I go through like 30 or 40 messages. Then I fire up the iPhone and of course there are all the emails that I've just read. Is there a way to delete all the messages rather than going through them and deleting one by one? Thanks.

03-14-2008, 01:34 PM

use imap if your email client supports it. when you read or delete a message it will mark it as read or delete it for every device using the imap address. if your client doesnt support it then i think your stuck manually deleting them.

03-14-2008, 01:46 PM

If you don't have an account that supports IMAP, what you can do, if you haven't already, is add the account to Mail.app and then check your mail with that. When you sync your iPhone, whatever you did with the messages in Mail will be reflected on the iPhone, and vice versa.

Though of course IMAP is the best way to go.

03-14-2008, 02:23 PM

I think that is one of the worst over sights that is on the iPhone. That and cut and paste.

03-14-2008, 02:57 PM

Thanks guys all good suggestions but unfortunately my mail doesn't support imap and I don't sync all that often. I guess I'm stuck going through them and deleting one by one. Hopefully this will be addressed in an update.

03-14-2008, 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by Kash

If you don't have an account that supports IMAP, what you can do, if you haven't already, is add the account to Mail.app and then check your mail with that. When you sync your iPhone, whatever you did with the messages in Mail will be reflected on the iPhone, and vice versa.

Mine doesn't. When I sync, it doesn't change my messages or delete them with my POP accounts.... ?

03-14-2008, 05:44 PM

Originally Posted by husky123

Thanks guys all good suggestions but unfortunately my mail doesn't support imap and I don't sync all that often. I guess I'm stuck going through them and deleting one by one. Hopefully this will be addressed in an update.

Here's a suggestion:
Set up a Gmail account, tell Gmail to collect your email from your current provider via POP3 and then set up the "send email via this address by default" feature that lets you send email through gmail using another email address - in this case your current address with your old provider.

So Gmail would pick up your email via POP3, sync it to your iPhone / Mac via IMAP, you'd send emails with your same address, so no new address to tell everyone about and you get the benefits of GMail's spam filtering and IMAP.

03-16-2008, 12:32 AM

I have a gmail account, and I am very confused as to how to set up iMap with my phone. I cant even find it anywhere. I just spent the last 5 mins looking.

[Edit] Ok now I really cant find it. I looked on gmail, the phone, on my computer. Once again mac forums, you brought to my attention cool and helpful features that I do not have...

03-16-2008, 03:54 AM

First you need to enable IMAP on your Gmail account. Log into Gmail and click on Settings. Then go to the POP3/IMAP tab and make sure IMAP is enabled.

Now click on the Configuration options link at the bottom and follow the directions to setup IMAP Gmail on your iPhone.

03-05-2010, 12:53 PM

I have to agree. This so unproductive. I do not want to do IMAP becasue I want them deleted from my phone, not my laptop.

Blackberry made it so easy to do. Iphone makes it so unproductive. I get hundreds of emails a day.

I called support and they said to have everyone put in a complaint/request at Apple - iPhone - Feedback

03-05-2010, 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by KayMyPreciosKid

I have to agree. This so unproductive.

1. You know you're responding to a thread from two years ago, right?

2. iPhone software 2.0, which came out in July 2008, gave us batch delete.

12-07-2010, 03:00 PM

Good grief. This thread is over 4 years old. I'm new to this mostly fantastic iPhone 4 and quite shocked that you can't 'Mark All' and/or 'Delete All' and/or 'Delete Marked' email.

Chas_m if you're still out there, where is this batch delete? (I trust you're not referring to having to point and click on every email message that you want to delete? That's terrible if you're sending and receiving a large volume of messages each day)

Cheers.

12-07-2010, 03:15 PM

See if this helps. Not tried it yet myself.

Apple Tech Blog: TIP: iPhone Email Batch Delete

12-07-2010, 04:02 PM

dtravis7, thanks for your time. But no... that (new) process simply means that instead of Swipe/Delete, you now get little radio buttons to the left of each message. You have to run down the list and press that button beside every email you want to delete.

Since getting the iPhone last week I've been trying to keep up with maintenance. But given the volume of email I deal with, plus spam that gets through, it's torturous. This morning I went through every email this way. Right now I look and it says I have 56 new messages. I get queasy just thinking of having to it all over again. I'm spending most of my time doing this!

I nearly got VERY queasy when I noticed they sat in Trash after deleting, but (thank you, Apple) you can at least set the Trash to automatically clear out email after one day. LOTS of emails in that trash bin. But better than having to do the arduous process twice.

I cannot for the life of me understand why there isn't a simple Mark All, or Delete All, or Delete Marked.

It's similar to double-clicking the Home button, and not being able to Close All apps. I have to sit there and poke vibrating, little red dots. Sometimes I get them.

The surprising part is that there is clearly SO much thought and brilliance that's gone into the design and manufacture of this device. It's difficult to understand oversights like these... scouring the web shows that the frustration's not new. The issues keep coming up time and again.

12-07-2010, 04:07 PM

Saw that after I tried it. Will keep looking in case there is something I am missing.

For now at least it's to me anyway better than swiping each message!