Email: But why DIDN'T they give us Delete All?

[MiZDove]

I know this subject has to have been addressed over and over, because I've found various and plentiful posts going back 3 years. You'd think they would have added this feature by now, with how many people have complained.

I did learn how to Delete All, but that "trick" only works if you don't try to delete too many at once.

I've had my email address for 20 years, and get thousands of junk emails. I often spend hours and hours unsubscribng, and it helps for awhile.

Back to my question, So Why didn't Apple give us the ability to Select All and delete? WHY. On a device that just Always Does What You Think It Should, it seems a big fat oversight or they have a darn good reason. WHAT. I'm dying to know.

 

[J. A.]

If you want to delete all emails from the Inbox, this is possible.

Tap "Edit" in the account where you intend to remove all the emails. Check mark the first email. Then tap "Move" at the bottom and hold it. While still holding it, uncheckmark the email you had checkmarked before. Lift your finger from "Move". Depending on the amount of emails in the account, the iPad will need just a very short time or a few seconds to react. At the left, you'll see the folders of the account when it's ready. Now you can move all the emails from the Inbox to the folder you prefer, including Trash.

 

[dhewson777]

It's a lose-lose for Apple either way. They've chosen the lesser of two evils. Imagine if there was a Delete All? Some people would accidentally delete all their emails with no way to retrieve them. There would be a massive outcry from users caught out.

 

[MiZDove]

Thanks guys. I know the trick to Delete All, but if you have more than a couple hundred emails to delete, the iPad crashes. At least mine does. And since I get thousands in a day, and am not constantly checking my email, that trick doesn't work well for me. And that's what it is, a "trick". Not a feature.

As for people accidentally Deleting All, that's a little silly. They can ask for confirmation, like every other system on the planet. If they still accidentally Delete without unchecking the ones they want to save, then I don't know what to say. To force us to delete emails one at a time means I use my PC for email. To not be able to use my iPad for such a fundamental feature, it's ludicrous. I just will never understand, I suppose.

 

[giradman]

Well, I cannot imagine getting 'thousands' of junk emails a day; plus, un-subscribing to dubious junk mail sites often alerts these nefarious individuals that your email address is not only active but is likely shared w/ others; I only un-subscribe to 'legitimate' sites which I do rarely.

Also, have you tried using either spam filtering on your email provider's website (works for me to avoid much of my spam on Yahoo) or other spam avoidance methods? Finally, you can simply obtain a new email address - many suggest several email addresses, i.e. one for your personal needs (friends, family, etc.) and one or several for web browsing where spammers may be lurking. Good luck! Dave

 

[twerppoet]

Sounds to me like your real issue is junk mail. Sure, mass delete might be handy, but your core problem is that you are getting massive amounts of unwanted emails.

Without knowing what mail provider you are using I can't recommend any method's to reduce spam. Most fo the big providers have built in spam filtering, the tends to get better as long as you keep making unwanted emails as junk. There are exceptions.

If you are stuck with the email account with no or poor filtering, for whatever reason, there is a third party solution. MailRoute sits in-between you and your email provider, and adds superior spam filtering, along with reports (on a schedule you decide) so you can catch stuff that should not have been filtered.

I don't use it myself, but several tech blogs recommend it, and claim it is fairly easy to set up, and reliable.

 

[twerppoet]

The other solution is to go to your email provider's webmail site and use their deletion tools. Some providers even have apps. I do this for Yahoo. It's my least used email account, but for some reason it's also the worst when it comes to collecting junk mail.

 

[MiZDove]

Thanks for your replies. Yes, when I get my mail on my PC, it does filter out much of the spam, leaving me hundreds instead of thousands - with the rest going into junk mail. The iPad doesn't seem to do that. So once again, using the email client on the iPad just doesn't seem functional. I've had my email address for 20 years, which is why I get so much junk mail. I don't wish to change it because I own my own domain. Although I could assign a new user id to the domain, I've always been who I am, and I don't want to change. The point of this is that there should be a Select All for deleting emails, plain and simple. It's ridiculous that there isn't. And, if there is a way to filter junk mail through the iPad email client, would someone please share it with me?

 

[twerppoet]

The iPad Mail client does not do local junk mail filtering. It depends on your provider to do that before placing the emails in your inbox.

Google's GMail can be set up to get and send emails through another provider. I'm pretty sure they will do filtering during the this process. At any rate, it wouldn't cost you anything but the time to try and set it up.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?hl=en

And, if you change your mind and decide you do want to migrate to a new email provider, this can ease the transition.

There are third party email clients for the iPad. I don't know if any of them do local filtering. These days most of the popular email providers do that on the server, so finding one that has local filters will take some research. However, I'd be very surprised if at least a few of them don't have a Delete All feature.

And then there is Mailroute, which I've already mentioned.

If we don't seem to be addressing your main complaint, that's because we can't. We have no more ability to convince Apple to add a feature than you do. And since most popular email providers do filtering for you, Apple has little incentive to add a feature that few people would use.

As for local junk filtering, well that's turned out to be a service that works better on the server. To filter junk efficiently you need a large constantly updating list of bad addresses and keywords. It's a lot easier to keep that in one place than to try and keep it updated on individual devices. That's why most providers and email clients have stopped doing it.

I know. Excuses, excuses. But this is where we are at. While you can complain to Apple and hope, you need a solution today; which means using the options you have today.

Here's the feedback link for Apple: Don't expect a personal response. They even say they don't do that on the page. It's still worth sending. One more straw might break the camel's back.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

 

[s2mikey]

It's a lose-lose for Apple either way. They've chosen the lesser of two evils. Imagine if there was a Delete All? Some people would accidentally delete all their emails with no way to retrieve them. There would be a massive outcry from users caught out.

Nah, I have to disagree here. Every mail program out there except the apple one has a way to delete multiple emails at once. It's no more dangerous than anything people can do on their tablet. It's a needed feature and the positives far outweigh the negatives, IMO.

 

[dhewson777]

Nah, I have to disagree here. Every mail program out there except the apple one has a way to delete multiple emails at once. It's no more dangerous than anything people can do on their tablet. It's a needed feature and the positives far outweigh the negatives, IMO.

I get what your saying, but I was addressing a Delete All scenario, rather than a Delete Selection, which I think would be helpful in the Mail app.

 

[twerppoet]

You can delete a selection. Tap on Edit, tap each email you want to delete, then tap delete.

You can also Delete all in the Trash folder.

What you can't do is Select All and Delete All in the Inbox or most other folders.

 

[scifan57]

Maybe the reason there isn't a delete all button is that Apple wanted to make it harder to delete anything important without noticing.