How to delete 10,000 e-mails

[larrycruzen]

this has probably been asked before, but nothing I have tried works. I have over 10,000 e-mails accumulated on my Yahoo account. I use the the Apple e-mail app, but also have the Yahoo app. How do I delete all e-mails in my in-box without losing the ones that I have moved to other e-mail boxes to preserve them?

 

[giradman]

Hi again Larry - I cannot remember if you have a regular computer, i.e. PC or Mac? But I would suggest using a web browser and sign into your Yahoo account @ their website - below is a pic of my opened Yahoo account on my MBAir via Safari (I've blanked out personal info) - there you can see which mailboxes/folders have the most of those 10,000 emails - you should be able to easily delete then there (e.g. I just 'cleaned out' over 500 old 'sent' emails). Let us know if this helps. Dave
.

 

[larrycruzen]

Hi, Dave, thanks for your reply. I have an iPhone and an iPad. I signed into Yahoo mail using Safari. There, in my inbox, are the 10,000 e-mails. Now, what do I do? I don't see anyway to select them all and delete them.

 

[giradman]

Hi, Dave, thanks for your reply. I have an iPhone and an iPad. I signed into Yahoo mail using Safari. There, in my inbox, are the 10,000 e-mails. Now, what do I do? I don't see anyway to select them all and delete them.

Hi again - I was hoping that you had access to a PC or Mac (or even a friend's computer that you could log into your Yahoo account, i.e. the 'multiple deletion' process is so much easier to do)?

With iOS 10.x, Apple eliminated a 'Trash All' button in the Mail App, so the current steps involve selecting the 'Edit' option in your inbox (upper right) which will move your emails to the right w/ empty circles to the left for each one - those messages can now be selected (i.e. one or many more) - once selected, the 'Trash' option (bottom right) will become active for deletion. Unfortunately, selecting all 1000 of your emails at once and then deleting does not seem to be a choice - take a look at this OSXDaily Article which describes a 'work around' - I have not tried nor can vouch for this suggestion, up to you.

You might want to provide us w/ some more information to understand your mail setup: 1) Assume that you are using Yahoo's IMAP server; 2) Are the same inbox messages present on both of your devices; and 3) How are your iCloud options set relative to mail? Also, what iOS version are you using - all of this may help others to reply. This question has been asked before w/ a number of responses, so you're not alone. Dave

 

[twerppoet]

Try tapping and holding the reload button in the URL field of Safari, then choose Request Desktop Site. You may have to go back to the Yahoo main page, Request Desktop Site, and then select Mail from the menu at the left. At least that's how I think I ended up with the two column view.

By default Safari will take you to the mobile version of most sites. Mobile sites are greatly simplified and tend to lack features.

Now, since I don't have any email in my Yahoo account, I can't guarantee this will return the select all feature, but it's your best bet. Even if it does, it only sellects evertying on the current page, so you'll end up doing a lot of deleting anyway.

 

[Aerofly]

Hi Larry, you say you have the Yahoo app on your iPhone and iPad?.
If this is the case, have a look at the screen shot here.

After you select the first email using the tick box, a new tick box should appear (indicated by the arrow). This tick box allows you to select ALL of the emails in the current folder (inbox etc).

Simply select them all, and go to the bottom of the selection where you can now use the 'trash' button to delete them all.

And try this to delete ALL emails using the Apple mail app (taken from one of my posts in a previous thread)

"There used to be a method to remove all emails from an account in 'mail' using the 'delete all' command.
Unfortunately Apple seem to have removed this facility for multiple emails in iOS 10, and you can now only delete one email at a time. This is fine for a few emails, but I wanted to remove approx. 6,500 !.

However I have since found that there is a hidden method in iOS to easily remove all emails in Inbox or Draft. And it needs only a few clicks, works on any iPhone iPad in all versions of iOS 10 (including iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.).

The solution is moving all emails to Trash, which still has a 'Delete All' button.

Step 1. Go to Inbox or other account mailboxes that have no "Delete All", and click Edit on the top corner.

Step 2. After selecting one email, press and hold the "Move" on the bottom and then uncheck the email you selected. (Make sure not release "Move" until you uncheck all the items you checked before.)

Step 3. It may take a while, depending on how many emails are in the account, but it will then bring you to a page that allows you to move all emails to another folder, such as Junk and Trash. In this way, you can move all emails to Trash.

Step 4. After moving all emails to Trash, just click Edit > "Delete All" in the trash to get rid of all emails from Inbox or other boxes that have no "Delete All".

Hope this helps

Steve"

 

[giradman]

With iOS 10.x, Apple eliminated a 'Trash All' button in the Mail App, so the current steps involve selecting the 'Edit' option in your inbox (upper right) which will move your emails to the right w/ empty circles to the left for each one - those messages can now be selected (i.e. one or many more) - once selected, the 'Trash' option (bottom right) will become active for deletion. Unfortunately, selecting all 1000 of your emails at once and then deleting does not seem to be a choice - take a look at this OSXDaily Article which describes a 'work around' - I have not tried nor can vouch for this suggestion, up to you. Dave

Hi Larry, you say you have the Yahoo app on your iPhone and iPad?.

However I have since found that there is a hidden method in iOS to easily remove all emails in Inbox or Draft. And it needs only a few clicks, works on any iPhone iPad in all versions of iOS 10 (including iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.).

The solution is moving all emails to Trash, which still has a 'Delete All' button.

Step 1. Go to Inbox or other account mailboxes that have no "Delete All", and click Edit on the top corner.

Step 2. After selecting one email, press and hold the "Move" on the bottom and then uncheck the email you selected. (Make sure not release "Move" until you uncheck all the items you checked before.)

Step 3. It may take a while, depending on how many emails are in the account, but it will then bring you to a page that allows you to move all emails to another folder, such as Junk and Trash. In this way, you can move all emails to Trash.

Step 4. After moving all emails to Trash, just click Edit > "Delete All" in the trash to get rid of all emails from Inbox or other boxes that have no "Delete All".

@ Larry - appears that Steve has some experience using several of the similar methods suggested in the OSXDaily link that I gave previously, so some positive input - great! Good luck and let us know your results; like I said in my earlier post, this issue has come up before. Dave

 

[Aerofly]

Sorry giradman , I didn't mean to repeat what you had said, I simply missed what you said in your reply.
At least we both knew there was a work around

Steve

 

[giradman]

Sorry giradman , I didn't mean to repeat what you had said, I simply missed what you said in your reply.
At least we both knew there was a work around

Hi Steve - not a problem at all and always good to have confirmation; my main point was that you seemed to have tried and succeeded w/ the 'work around' - despite my link being similar I had not given the potential solution a try, so was hoping that others would 'chime in'. Dave

 

[larrycruzen]

Wow!!! I now have zero e-mails in my Yahoo inbox. Thanks, Steve and Dave. A couple of comments about the deletion process:
Using the Yahoo mail app
Press and hold any e-mail to select it
Press the checkmark which then appears in the upper left corner
That selects all e-mails that were downloaded to my iPad
Problem was that was only about 150 of the 10.000 in my inbox
It was necessary to scroll down to force more to download
(maybe because I have a slow internet connection)
Repetative scrolling down eventually downloaded them all
Then, pressing the trash icon at the lower left deleted the e-mails

Actually, it did not delete them, just moved them to "trash". Repeating the above process in the trash folder deleted them. Since they were already downloaded, it was not necessary to scroll down to load them again.

In the future, I will probably delete old e-mails more than once per year.

Thanks again, guys, for the assistance.

Larry

 

[Aerofly]

Good to see it worked Larry )
Steve

 

[giradman]

Wow!!! I now have zero e-mails in my Yahoo inbox.
Thanks again, guys, for the assistance.

Hi Larry - congrats on your success! And thanks for your explanation, likely will help others. Dave