How to delete multiple emails in Apple Mail on iPhone

Apple Mail on iPhone has a Select All button, but it hides in a view many people never open. And if your account shows Archive instead of Trash, you can tap through hundreds of emails and still have every one of them in the account.

Open the mailbox, tap More (the three dots) › Select, choose the emails, then tap Trash. If you only see Archive, touch and hold it and choose Trash Selected Messages. To get Select All, switch the mailbox to List View first. For thousands of emails, your provider’s website is usually faster.

Start in one account

Mail can show several accounts at once, such as iCloud, Gmail and work mail. A combined inbox makes it easy to delete from the wrong one.

1. Tap Mailboxes (or the sidebar button) until you see the list of accounts.
2. Tap the Inbox under the one account you want to clean.
3. Before you select anything, star or flag mail you must keep: receipts, contracts, tax forms, recovery codes.

Deleting here deletes on the mail server, so the mail disappears from the provider’s website and other devices too. Removing an account from the iPhone is different: it removes the account from this phone and leaves the mail on the server.

Delete several emails at once

1. Open Mail and the inbox or folder you want.
2. Tap the More button (three dots, top right), then tap Select.
3. Tap the circle next to each email. To select a run of emails quickly, drag a finger down through the circles.
4. Tap Trash at the bottom.
5. If you only see Archive, touch and hold Archive, then tap Trash Selected Messages.

These steps come from Apple’s delete-email guide.

Use Select All

Select All only appears in List View.

1. Tap More (three dots) › List View.
2. Tap More › Select, then tap Select All.
3. Read the count, then tap Trash.

Select All selects everything in the mailbox you have open. If that is your whole inbox, check it twice. A search result is a safer place to use it, because it only selects what matched.

Delete everything from one sender

If your iPhone shows Mail categories (Primary, Transactions, Updates, Promotions), it groups mail by sender. Apple notes that selecting a Transactions, Updates or Promotions message selects every message in that category from that sender (Apple).

1. Open the category and tap a sender’s group.
2. Tap More (three dots) › Trash All.

This is quick for a store that sends daily offers. Check the group first: the same store may also send receipts and delivery updates.

Search first, then select

1. Swipe down on the inbox to show the search field.
2. Search for a sender name, an email address or a word like “newsletter”.
3. Under the search box, choose the mailbox or account to limit where Mail looks.
4. Tap Select, choose the results, then tap Trash.

Open a few results before deleting. Search matches words anywhere in the email, so a search for a store’s name can also find your order confirmations.

Make Trash the default instead of Archive

Gmail and some other accounts are set to archive by default. To change it:

1. Open Settings › Apps › Mail › Mail Accounts.
2. Tap the account, then Account Settings › Advanced.
3. Under Move Discarded Messages Into, choose Deleted Mailbox.

For an iCloud account, the setting is under Mail Accounts › iCloud › Mailbox Behaviors. After this change, swiping left and the trash button both send mail to Trash.

Recover an email you deleted

1. Tap Mailboxes until you see the account list.
2. Tap Trash under the right account and open the email.
3. Tap the Mailbox button (folder icon) and choose Inbox or another folder.

To see deleted mail from every account in one place, tap Edit on the Mailboxes screen and turn on All Trash (Apple).

How long deleted mail stays in Trash depends on the account. You can change it under Settings › Apps › Mail › Mail Accounts, then the account’s Mailbox Behaviors or Advanced screen, then Remove. Check it before a big cleanup so your safety net is the length you expect.

When to use the website instead

Use your provider’s website for a very large cleanup. It can select every match for a search in one go, and it shows the real total.

• iCloud: iCloud Mail on the web
• Gmail: Gmail on a computer, or the Gmail app guide
• Yahoo: Yahoo Mail in reviewed batches

If storage is the reason

There are two different “full” warnings. iPhone Storage is space on the phone. iCloud or Google storage is space in your account. Deleting email mainly helps the second.

Archived mail still counts toward account storage. If your iCloud is full, check whether photos or backups are the real cause in the iCloud storage guide before deleting mail.

To stop the inbox refilling, unsubscribe from lists you no longer read and keep a short weekly email review.

Steps checked against Apple Support in November 2026 for current iOS. Button names and menus vary between iOS versions.

Sources

• Apple Support: Delete emails on your iPhone or iPad
• Apple Support: Delete and recover emails in Mail on iPhone