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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I don't use my iphone for email because I get 200-300 emails per day, and there's no way to mass delete the inbox. I have to select-delete for every email.

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You can drag down with two fingers held apart to select the messages. I use that fairly often, especially with search results. It's still not as fast as having a select-all button but does give you a chance to notice that not all of the messages are the same.

Well now I feel like an idiot because I have had an iPhone since the 4S and never knew this

How am I supposed to learn "tricks" like this? They seem to be basic stuff.

Neat! I was in the other sub-thread suggesting the slow one-finger version. Hopefully a few other apps use the same paradigm.

Walter Bright, is it possible you run an older version of iOS or that you use a different app than Mail? I completely believe what you’re experiencing; just trying to think why it’s happening to you…

It doesn't work when I try it. It just scrolls the screen.

It might be the tap-then-drag delay — I've been using this process for a few years so I know it works but I haven't seen it documented anywhere by Apple so I'm probably using different terminology.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/12/02/two-finger-tap-ipho...

That didn't work, either :-(

The whole screen just scrolls.

What works for me is to not attempt to time it at all. Simply place two fingers directly on a message. Leave them there. Wait a second, then start sliding down. The message list should immediately shift to the right, exposing selection "circles" at the left edge of each message. As you continue sliding downward, each circle you "pass" will become selected. You can continue holding as you reach the bottom of the screen to keep the selection going. If you overshoot the end of the area you want to delete, you can slide back up to unselect a few rows before releasing. This works in both Mail and Messages.

Ha - on the iPad there is an edit button that exposes the selection circles; never occurred to me there would be a way to do the same thing on the iPhone. Nice!

I put two fingers on a message. The message shades slightly. I slide down. The shading goes away, and the screen slides down. It does not slide right, it does not collect $200.

When I put two fingers at the same time on a message, the checkboxes immediately appear. If I'm even slightly off, the checkboxes never appear and instead I get to see the contents of the message when I let go.

I tried this again and again.

Wow. I didn’t know this. Thank you for sharing!

You’re welcome — I had the same reaction seeing a video a couple of years ago. Best kept secret…

In the Mail app, tap Edit, then select the empty checkbox to the left of the top email, then drag from the second email down to the bottom of the view (it'll autoscroll.) Then you can move or trash the emails all at once.

I tried this many times, it scrolls the whole screen down but does not select the emails.

Are you tapping and swiping down on the unchecked circles on the left? It scrolls the screen down if you swipe on the preview of the emails, but not the circles you see after you tap Edit int he upper right.

I tried that, too. It just scrolls the screen down, whether in the Edit mode or not.

Why would you delete emails? I still do not get people's email habits. I used to maintain my inbox back in the days before all the normies came online. Now I just scan, read the things that interest me, and move on. Same for every email...work, school, and personal.

Why would you use a phone for email. Plenty of desktop web clients work excellent and support the click1, shift-click2 or click1, shift-downArrow selection flows that are way faster than what the phone UIs can pull off.

10GB mailbox for work

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