How delete over 20,000 old emails messages easily?
jph7
Enthusiast - Level 1

I was helping a friend today with her Verizon email account. When we logged into Verizon webmail, we found that there were over 20,000 old read emails in her inbox, dating back to 2008.

I found a way to delete 50 at a time, but deleting 1000's that way was not practical.

I could find no way to select by date range to remove large blocks of messages. For example, delete all old messages in 2008, then all in 2009, etc.

How can you delete over 20,000 old emails messages easily? (And still leave the most recent, say in 2012.)

1 Solution
whodat1231
Enthusiast - Level 1

Hey all. 

To delete all of your messages from your inbox, go to the settings tab, and then go down to "Number of messages per page" and set it to "No limit". Hit "Save" at the top and then hit OK when it asks you to refresh your browser. Then in your inbox, check the box that is to the left of "Sender" and hit delete. It will take a long time if you have that many messages, but it'll get done. Cheers! 

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22 Replies
somegirl
Champion - Level 3

@JPH wrote:

I was helping a friend today with her Verizon email account. When we logged into Verizon webmail, we found that there were over 20,000 old read emails in her inbox, dating back to 2008.

I found a way to delete 50 at a time, but deleting 1000's that way was not practical.

I could find no way to select by date range to remove large blocks of messages. For example, delete all old messages in 2008, then all in 2009, etc.

How can you delete over 20,000 old emails messages easily? (And still leave the most recent, say in 2012.)


The easiest way I can think of to do that would be to set up a pop3 client and set it to "Delete from the server after ___."

hs611
Newbie

how do you set up a pop3 client (for the purpose of deleting thousands of old emails)?

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TomH121
Community Leader
Community Leader

ON THE CURRENT VERSION OF EMAIL

Settings>General Settings>Display>Number of Messages per page>NO LIMIT

Then when you delete ALL WILL GO....

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tns2
Community Leader
Community Leader

Look for one of the popular ones.

Microsoft live mail

Thunderbird

Make sure you use the officail sites (microsoft or Mozilla.org for the ones I mentioned.)

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whodat1231
Enthusiast - Level 1

Hey all. 

To delete all of your messages from your inbox, go to the settings tab, and then go down to "Number of messages per page" and set it to "No limit". Hit "Save" at the top and then hit OK when it asks you to refresh your browser. Then in your inbox, check the box that is to the left of "Sender" and hit delete. It will take a long time if you have that many messages, but it'll get done. Cheers! 

cblack7830
Enthusiast - Level 1

This worked great!  Many thanks!!!

Woloch1
Enthusiast - Level 1

Hey I had the same problem and found the solution here. Thanks, you genius!

patmattmom
Newbie

Wow - thank you = i just deleted over 40K messages!

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DIVERDAN1
Enthusiast - Level 1

Wow! I've been trying to figure out how to do that easily for sometime and couldn't do it. Major kudos to whodat1231 for the solution.

Major jeers to Verizon for basically "threatening" users to delete their emails because their inboxes are getting full, and not telling them how to easily delete 20000 emails at once.

Could verizon possibly be possibly any less helpful?

TomJM
Newbie
It seems so simple now, thanks I've been trying to do this for a long time!
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TTLOFKss
Newbie

I'm so thankful for your direction.  This was fast and easy.  Thanks!

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justme601
Newbie

Thanks so much.

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mtouset
Newbie

You Da Man!

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mlpm1
Newbie

THANK YOU!

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dockaad
Newbie

Thanks for help. Worked grear deleted 34 k of emails.

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termite46
Newbie

Terrific solution that took less than 5 minutes. To an otherwise solution that would take many many hours to achieve.

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lamo2
Newbie

Worked! Thanks so much!

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carol619
Enthusiast - Level 1
I have over 4,ooo msgs I broke my hand and cannot delete them at once dates August through December
Busybean1
Enthusiast - Level 2
Thank you! I am so grateful to whodat1231 - I had more than 32,000 emails in there! I feel lighter already!
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armond_in_nj1
Master - Level 1

@Busybean wrote:
... I had more than 32,000 emails in there! I feel lighter already!

How much does a photon weigh?

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