New mail version - delete problems

Hi,

I just upgraded my older MacBook OS X to 10.7.5 (Lion). I now have Version 5.3 of the Apple Mail program. There are 2 thing I'd like to do but cannot figure out how to do it:

1) I have alot of old, unwanted emails in my trash. Is there a 'Delete all' function in this mail version? Now, I'm deleting unwanted emails one at a time and that seems dumb and it takes a really long time.

2) I sometimes create folders (or, in Mail, they might be called mailboxes) to organize my emails. Sometimes, when I finish a project, I want to erase all the older emails from that project and junk the folder. I've emptied a folder of all its emails but cannot figure out how move this empty folder to trash or just erase the folder, which I no longer need/use. There seems to me there must be a way to do this but I cannot figure it out and Mail - Help doesn't seem to have the answer.

Any help with my problems would be awesome!

Thanks,

Bob M.

This should work:

1. Click or highlight the first mail message in the trash. Hold down your shift key and click on the last message in the trash. Press delete. That should work to remove all of them. If the list of messages is too long to be deleted that way, you can select 10 at a time or 15 at a time, etc.

2. Right click on the mailbox you no longer need. Select delete. That will not only delete the mailbox but will also delete all messages in it, so be careful and make sure that's what you really want to do.

Mission accomplished...

Thanks, chscag,

Yes, I knew about the shift-click to select all the emails present on the screen. I was hoping for a 'delete all' function (like on my iPhone and iPod Touch) but this will get the job done.

As I use a MacBook with a built in trackpad, I don't have right-click capabilities but I figured out thru trial and error that Control + Click does the same thing and offers me the choice of rename, delete or export (whatever that is) a folder/mailbox. Job accomplished, thanks very much.

I'm just getting used to this new version and layout of the Apple Mail program. I'll have in a few days (I hope).

Bob M.

You should be able to configure the trackpad to accept a two figure tap as a right click. That is how I have mine set.

"Every" trackpad on notebook Macs have a right click option.
(At least "every" Intel Mac does. I know nothing about any PPC Mac.)

It's time you set yours up...
Open System Preferences - Trackpad.

After you have a right click set up
You can then select the Trash folder in Mail
right click on it (or use 'option click' if you're not going to set up a right click)
and select 'Erase deleted items' to empty the folder

(Actually, in Mail, you don't even need to have the Trash folder selected. You can right click on any folder and select the option to Erase deleted items to empty the trash folder.)

If you have a long list of messages to delete and the shift-click method becomes awkward try the following. This method still works in the current version to delete all messages in a mailbox.:

1. Click on the mailbox with messages you want to delete.
2. Click on one of the messages as chscag suggested then press command-a to select all of them.
3. Press delete.

Make sure you select the message in the list don't select the text of the message.

BTW haven't needed to do it in a while but isn't it possible to delete a mailbox without emptying its contents first?

I went to my system preferences -> trackpad to try to implement the right-click feature but I didn't see any such option on my very early 2007 ID: 3,1 MacBook. Does Apple have another term they might use instead of right-click?

Bob M.

"secondary click"