It’s taken me months to find the solution to this irritating problem. Until now, I’ve had to delete mail by clicking on ‘edit’, and then selecting each individual mail. This is great when you have four messages but painful when you have 100. Or 400, as was the case today. So I searched and searched, and finally found the answer. This has made the phone 10x more enjoyable to use.
1. Go into your inbox
2. Press Edit
3. Select one message to delete
4. Press and hold the delete button
5. While you are still holding the delete button, uncheck the email you just selected
6. Release the delete button
Now you will be shown a prompt to either “Delete All” or Cancel.
That’s it. It takes one second and you’re done. Hallelujah!
UPDATE for iOS 6, including iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 / 6
1. Go to your inbox
2. Press Edit
3. Tap any message once to select it
4. Press AND HOLD the Move button
5. While still holding the Move button, tap the message you selected
6. Release the Move button
7. This will bring up a dialog box asking you which folder you’d like to move all your messages to – just select the Trash folder and you’re all done
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I can’t get this to work?
I have the iPhone 4
Do you have any tips on how to delete all your smses at once?
I have the same problem it doesnt work!
is it different for 4s?
It stopped working for me when iOS 5 came out and I had the iPhone 4. I now have the iPhone 4S and it still doesn’t work. Such a fail on Apple’s part.
Make sure you are following the steps for the operating system on your iPhone. the first steps didn’t work for me, but once I followed instructions for the version 6 it worked effortlessly! Thank you! 🙂
It does work, I swear. Follow the EXACT instructions above. Pay attention to 4 and 5: hold the delete button while clicking on the selected mail item again.
Thanks! It absolutely does work!!! I just did it and saved myself a ton of time. Just have to follow the instuctions exactly as written.
Great to hear it! Thanks for letting me know 🙂
Can’t get it to work either.
Have a iPhone 3G (iOS4.2.1)
Using Gmail & Yahoo accounts
Perhaps it depends on how your mail is set up?
I’ve just posted a pic above of the magic button that pops up!
Just read the headline…for iPhone 4 not my lowly 3G…sorry!
It does not work for me. do you have any tips?
Kim, have you followed the steps exactly as above on your iPhone 4? It definitely works.
Doesn’r work on iPhone4s. I’ve followed directions explicitly.
I know Robert. This actually stopped working with one of the iOS upgrades leading up to iOS5. It’s so frustrating and is SUCH a simple thing for Apple to release a quick fix for.
Not working for me either.
does it work for ipod touch? cause its not for me??
Unfortunately it doesn’t work at all anymore, since the release of iOS 5. Shocking that Apple would restrict users from this very simple functionality.
Happily enough i van write you that you are wrong. Your method of cleaning the mail in bulk is still functioning. I just cleaned more than 10500 emails with your method. So thank you very much for your thread!
Still doesn’t work for me on the latest iOS version on iPhone 4S.
Works great on my iPhone 4s!
There is a program From Cydia called “all mail,”
I do not suggest that you download this .. It breaks you phone from security and unlocks its security codes..
And opens phone up for hacks..
Not a good thing to do..
Currently there is no way to safely delete all at once.
Be careful from downloads or people who try to get you to install it
Delete didn’t work on my iPhone 4s w/ iOS6 but MOVE did work. Curious.
I have iPhone 5. This (the ‘move’ one) worked for me for the first 25 messages that were downloaded, now trying to get the rest– now will not work at all. I hope some coder in Cupertino is working on this NOW. Major PIA!
I have iPhone 4S and it only deletes 25 messages at a time. I have over 4000 emails. What can I do!? PLEASE HELP!
It’s very frustrating. Such a basic piece of functionality that Apple refuses to open up. That’s why I just use the Gmail app now and manage my mail that way.
Thanks you so so so much helped A LOT!!!
Happy to hear it worked for you Jenna! 🙂
I JUST USED IT & IT DOES WORK!!! KUDOS TO YOU! 150 & 5000 more!!
Awesome! 🙂
It works for my iPhone 5, but after I close out my app the next time I re-open it all of my emails are back in my inbox. I’ve done it like 10 times! Very frustrating!
They all come back as soon as you go to another screen or re-open the app.
Worked on my 4s on Comcast & gmail but one method for one & dif for the other, weird. My girlfriend both have same phone with latest upgrade & I can’t get hers to delete. We were having trouble texts to each other until I rebooted, I didn’t know I needed to do that…
It’s all such a mission isn’t it? If only Apple would let users control their mail like any other phone manufacturer :/
Thanks a lot! Worked great and so simple.
Good stuff Judy, thanks for the comment!
It worked for me after i marked them all read. Then I went thru your process. Thanks 420 deleted
Fantastic Bill. Looks like Apple’s realised they need to have SOME way of letting users delete their mail, even if it’s via a top secret combination of button presses 😀
It worked! I’ve been trying figure out how to delete these 20k messages from my iphone for months…thank you so much :))
Excellent!
THANKS!!!! IT WORKED… I had so many emails it would of taken me a month to delete one by one!!! I APPRECIATE THIS POST!!!
Superb! Thanks for letting me know 🙂
Hallelujah! Thank you so much for helping me get rid of 1100 unwanted emails on my phone with just a few moves.
Glad to hear it helped 🙂
Wow. A previous poster was exactly right. You have to mark them all as read and then follow Jason’s steps (I have IPhone 4s with latest updates) If I didn’t mark them as read first, they would delete but then comeback when going to another screen or reopening the app
Thanks
at first it appears to work but then when you go back the messages are still there. what am i doing wrong. i have a 4s and due to a server probl
Make certain you mark all as “read” first. It works
Thank you, thank you. Deleting one email at a time has been driving me nuts for a year!!!!
Happy you’re sorted 🙂
Which delete button?
All I have is Trash at the bottom of the screen on my iPhone 4
THANK YOU!!! It worked. I have an IPhone. 4S… I used the instructions for iOS 6 (Even though I have updated to iOS 7) and it worked… Almost 300 messages…poof…gone!
Oops.. The came back.
Works great. I have a 4S with 6.1.2 operating system.
You need to remember that it only works on emails that have been read. You can use the same method to mark all emails as read using the Mark button.
First hit the “edit” key
Select 1 unread message
hold the “Mark” key while clicking on the marked message selected in previous step.
Click on the “Mark as Unread” button to mark all messages as being read.
the part about only working on READ mail is the key. After I did that, and then ran the delete all description, then the messages all went to the trash bin and the number showing in the dialogue box went to 0. However, upon rebooting, all the deleted messages magically showed up in my inbox again!
Any idea how to permanently delete them?
Thank you so much! Just worked on 4s IOS 7.06 for over 1,200 emails my road runner webmail account decided to dump on me for no reason. Best advice!!
Thank you Jason.. this has been painstaking for Months! so glad I finally got disgusted enough to look this up and you had made it there before I .. Kudos to you!!
Thanks for the feedback Rhonda. I shared your frustration when I first encountered this problem. I still can’t believe that Apple has refused to add a ‘delete all’ button to email.
If you want to skip one of the selection step of telling the mail app where to move the e-mails, do this: Go to Settings. Select Mail, Contacts and Calendars. Select your e-mail account. Scroll to ADVANCED button. Under Move Discarded Messages Into: Check “Deleted Mailbox.” After this, whenever you release the MOVE button, they will all automatically move to Trash. I’m a newbie on the iPhone and boy was I upset about no ‘Delete All’ button for my Inbox until I discovered this fix. TAKE NOTE APPLE! EVERYONE WANTS A DELETE ALL BUTTON!!!!!
It shows the emails all going into the trash, but then when I go back into my inbox, the messages are still there! I tried giving it some time and also turning the phone on and off again to make sure it took, and for some odd reason, the messages DO NOT STAY in the trash! Please help! I have an iPhone 5.
I have same problem. Were you able to get a fix on it?
Second option worked.
What a relief.
Thanks!!!!
Doesn’t work. I tried it by marking all as read then using the same method to move the emails, it appears to work. When it refreshes, the emails are back. Whoever says it does, is wrong.
This is awesome. You have saved half of my lifetime! Thank u sooo much
High five! 🙂
This works like a charm BUT….. the mailboxes show 0 messages and the messages themselves still are there and can be read by clicking on the up or down arrows!!!
Now what?! Has anyone else had this happen?
Hi. I have an iPhone 4s, IOS 7.1.1
It shows the emails all going into the trash, but then when I go back into my inbox, the messages are still there! I also turned the phone on and off again and for some reason, they stay in the trash! Help please. Thanks.
Thanks, but unfortunately, this doesn’t work on the Sent Mail box.
it doesn’t works for 20 sec. then comes back, waste of time!!
You are a gem Jason! I have been trying to figure out how to delete hundreds of emails at one time and you helped me do it!! I am so happy and thanks so much for your expertise.
Brilliant. Very happy it worked for you, Marci 🙂
I have the apple I phone 5 I pressed the edit button and chose a message to delete. At the botton it had only 3 choices no delete just trash I held the trash down and then erased button and cancell at the top came up but no delete all. I wish to delete my 300 messages that was transfered to this phone all at once I only had the phone for 2 days
You must go to inbox and also have to do on your ipad devise. It worked perfectly after doing it on both devices!
I have had thousands of old emails dumped into my inbox. I have an iPhone 4 software iOS 7.1.2. I have followed your instructions about how to delete these all together but it is not working for me. I have gone into edit and selected one email as instructed but am not getting option to delete only to trash. Which when I hold down just trashes that one mail. Can you help me please.
Wonderful. Followed your instructions. All emails in iPhone 5s got deleted in one shot. It took about 15 seconds. Thank You. Very much appreciated. With warm Regards
thank you so much – I tried the suggestion several times – but I was not in the “main” mailbox ….I played with the buttons but no luck ,,, i was about to give up when I saw that my 2,799 messages were being “read” and then …ta da! they were gone.
I have a Iphone 4 and yes it worked. I had over 2000 e-mails. Thank you thank you.
Not working for me either. I have iPhone 6S. Please help. I have thousands of unsubscribed emails that keep on flooding my inbox😢