Deleting iphone 4s emails

Two problems with deleting emails:

I have several hundred emails and don't want to have to delete them individually. Is there a way to delete them all or in large groups?

Second when I delete them after a short time they show up on my iPhone again. How do I stop that from happening.

I'm fairly new to this iOS stuff but on my iPad 2 deleting excess emails seems to be a bit of a PITA and it seems to be either deleting them individually or ALL.

Then when they've been deleted one has to open up each email Trash account and select them all again and tap the Delete All option.

Maybe someone will post a better reply and help us both out.

As for them showing up again, I'm guessing you may have some syncing going on but I thought each device or Mac dealt with emails separately.

Anyone....???

pm-r said:

I'm fairly new to this iOS stuff but on my iPad 2 deleting excess emails seems to be a bit of a PITA and it seems to be either deleting them individually or ALL.

Then when they've been deleted one has to open up each email Trash account and select them all again and tap the Delete All option.

Maybe someone will post a better reply and help us both out.

As for them showing up again, I'm guessing you may have some syncing going on but I thought each device or Mac dealt with emails separately.

Anyone....???

Click to expand...

pm-r you are going about it the right way. The problem is, as yet, you cannot select multiple messages on an iPhone or iPad. This issue has been raised before. :Blushing: For Mail the only way I know to achieve the same result is to delete/trash your multiple messages on a laptop or desktop then select Erase Deleted Items from the email server by right clicking on the appropriate trash folder or the little gear wheel in the activity window at the bottom left in Mail. When you refresh your messages on your portable device they will be gone and your Trash folder will be empty.

I guess that awkward word-around method should work with IMAP email accounts, but most of mine and I suspect a lot of others are POP accounts.

I have found on my old iPad 2 when I have selected and viewing All Inboxes option, I can tap the Edit and then select each message I want to delete so that a blue dot with a checkmark appears to the left of each message and then tap the Trash.

That at least allows me to "select multiple messages" for deletion which is possible.

Of course the trashed messages have to be selected again in the appropriate account Trash mailbox and then in each one, tap the Edit and then tap the Delete All which gets rid of them.

Not a perfect method, but it works for me.

I thought I was just forgetful... I delete emails from iPhone4s and they keep coming back too. Weird. Not a syncing issue, as the emails stay deleted on iPad2 and MacAir. Fortunately I don't have that many emails, so it's a minor annoyance, but my sympathies over your hundreds.

Perhapes the easiest way is to login to the mail sever site and delete multiple emails there, however you will then need to empty the Bin, deleting them in the inbox just puts them in the Bin. I have just tried this on gMail and it deleted all corresponding messages on the iPhone as soon as it updated.

I use the same method as described by Rod above. Actually, it's faster that way and you never wind up with dupes. But like he said, you have to remember to go back in to the deleted bin and remove them from there also. Although, I believe gmail automatically deletes them anyway after so many days.

Yes, after 30 days in my case but although I haven't bothered to do do so I think that can be changed in gMail preferences. I will have a look at that.

Rod Sprague said:

Yes, after 30 days in my case but although I haven't bothered to do do so I think that can be changed in gMail preferences. I will have a look at that.

Click to expand...

Well I stand corrected, after looking through settings at gMail it appears the default setting for automatic deletion of trashed emails (in the Bin) is set to 30 days. So manually deleting the contents of the Bin seems to be the only way. This can also be achieved from your email client by (in the case of Apple Mail) select Trash, click on the cog wheel and select Erase Deleted Items which will remove them from the server.

Rod Sprague said:

Perhapes the easiest way is to login to the mail sever site and delete multiple emails there, however you will then need to empty the Bin, deleting them in the inbox just puts them in the Bin. I have just tried this on gMail and it deleted all corresponding messages on the iPhone as soon as it updated.

Click to expand...

For some reason this doesn't seem to matter on Thunderbird. I can delete all I want, and empty the Trash, but the emails follow me around like ghosts of Christmas Past. Some of them show up weeks later! I can live with it. Maybe it will disappear with iOS8. If I get up the courage to download it from my computer to my iPhone...