Android E-Mail app - Emptying the Trash

**Hoib** · 08-31-2011, 04:45 PM

OK, here's something interesting I just discovered on my Opt-T and I'm sure this is a native Android/Google issue because I just looked at someone's AT&T And 2.2 phone and someone elses HTC 4G phone they all have the same issue. Neither I nor these other two folk realized what's going on. Do you?

On a POP3 account: There is no "Empty Trash" feature nor is there a way to group select "Trash" items and clear them. On my phone which I've had since 11/10, I have 2200 email msgs laying around in there. That's 53.3 mB of real estate being used up by stuff I don't want and never want to see or use again. How horrid is that?

Someone suggested elsewhere, opening the Trash, selecting one message and then press-hold the "Delete" button to repeat-del messages from there down or up. Sounded good until I tried it. It's faster to just indiv select and del.

Someone further suggested, deleting the whole POP3 account and starting a fresh POP3. A supreme pain.

Yes, you could move to another third party app that offers this feature. But I'm sort of used to the native app - it does what I need. Except...

Frankly, I can't believe the designers left this rather important feature out. So far today, I've trimmed off about 25% of this detritus (by indiv select and del). It took quite a while but already I can tell the phone is acting more "peppy'. Those of you with "slow" phones might take heed. I can see myself plopped in front of the tube tonight with this mindless activity. And, don't think that the indiv sel/del is going to be fast. Sometimes the OS gets overwhelmed and it can be a couple of minutes before the phone comes to order. I've learned to only select 20-30 items at a time to ensure I don't hang up the OS.

So, the problem remains, how do I (we) get to empty the Trash with a couple of commands or keypresses rather than the punishment meted out by poor design? I know you don't want to go into the folder tree and start ripping things out. Anyone know a secret keypress sequence? Is there a utility app in the Market that handles this? Does Google/T-Mobile ever issue updates to this native "EMail" applet?

H

**Shygar** · 09-24-2011, 05:42 PM

Anyone come up with a solution to this? I'm having this problem on my LG Optimus S running Android 2.3.3...

**Turducken** · 09-28-2011, 04:23 PM

I think you answered your own question. Try a different email app or live with it.
Learning a new app sounds a lot easier than any of the alternatives you listed.

**edu-dba** · 10-04-2011, 11:01 AM

The stock android email client is a mess. If you use Exchange and have lots of folders, good luck getting them to sync. Over time I have found syncing starts to fail when the folder gets more than 20 emails or starts to contain emails older than 2 weeks.
Not only can;t you delete all, but deletes don't go to the server and sync. So if I delete on my phone. Empty trash on my outlook client and sync. Deleted stuff is still in my trash on my phone - and ya you have to empty one by one.

**edu-dba** · 10-04-2011, 11:02 AM

There has been a lot of discussion on these bugs here
see the issues here:

and

**sleepdep247** · 11-22-2011, 09:00 PM

This workaround method works for the default Email app v2.3.4 (possibly earlier versions) on a T-mobile G2. Open the trash folder, open a message from the trash folder, continuously click on the delete button for rapid deletion. [Message deleted.] will remain on the screen for a decent amount of time if a large number of messages were deleted.

**wcapital** · 04-20-2012, 12:53 PM

I'm an Android newbie...though have been using smartphones since before they called them smartphones (HP iPaq, like 7 years ago...and just replaced my 3 y/o Nokia N97 (Symbian)... w/ an ATT Samsung Galaxy Tab. Lots of stuff is a big upgrade -- but I'm incredulous that this simple email functionality is lacking - no way to empty the trash except one email at a time??? And beyond that, I've yet to see how to sync my contacts & calendar with Outlook directly, without using Google and syncing thru the cloud (I set up Google account b/c I seem to need it for many functions on Android, but want nothing to do with migrating everything onto their cloud and gmail!). I considered a new Nokia Lumia WP, but was steered away by advice about it's native applications shortcomings (like only space for one mobile number in contacts, requiring multiple contact entries for people w/ more than one). But now I'm questioning that decision. I didn't go to iPhone b/c I don't want my whole life to be run by and dependent upon Apple!

Anyhow, I can't believe that simple functionality like this was available on my primitive iPaq, and then on my Nokia w/ Symbian...but not now on the latest and greatest... I'd appreciate any thoughts on the above....though it sounds like I need to get out and evaluate some third party apps to do what I want... So, would also appreciate any suggestions there!

**fotyc** · 02-21-2013, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by wcapital

I'm an Android newbie...though have been using smartphones since before they called them smartphones (HP iPaq, like 7 years ago...and just replaced my 3 y/o Nokia N97 (Symbian)... w/ an ATT Samsung Galaxy Tab. Lots of stuff is a big upgrade -- but I'm incredulous that this simple email functionality is lacking - no way to empty the trash except one email at a time???

This may be old news but I just noticed 700+ emails in my trash that have built up since I got the phone at the beginning of this month, so I went googling to see what the answer was, and didn't find one. So I played around, and the way I found to do this is, go to Trash, shrink each day so it's just a bar with a number on it, and you can check the box for the entire day and delete it.

**expatCanuck** · 02-22-2013, 10:53 AM

This is ugly, but it's only 8 clicks / taps from the relevant account's Inbox,
which is considerably better than having to repeatedly click Delete.

Navigate to the inbox of the account from which you want to delete the trash.
1. Press the 'menu' button (bottom left), which provides a menu of 6 options, one of which is 'Folders'.
2. Choose Folders.
3. From the folders list, choose Trash.
4. Press the 'menu' button (bottom left), which provides a menu of 6 options, one of which is 'Delete'.
5. Choose Delete. This shows all deleted mail, plus a 'Select all' checkbox at the top left.
6. Check 'Select all', which will check all of the deleted mail messages.
7. Press the Delete button (bottom left).
8. You'll see the prompt "Delete these items permanently?". Click OK.
Enjoy watching the deleted items being deleted. When the process is complete,
'No messages' is displayed in the trash folder.

Ugly, but easy.

- Richard

P.S. - And, yeah, the developers really should add one-click Empty Trash functionality.

**Hoib** · 03-09-2013, 12:45 PM

Hi - On Step 4, I do not have 6 options! I only have 5; they are: Refresh / Compose / Folders / Accounts / Settings. No delete.
On Step 1, I also do not have 6 options, only 5 - the same ones as above.

Close but no cigar for me I guess.

And unfortunately, my meager memory on this device is at critical mass. Meaning that if I add a new eMail app, I'm going to be forced into taking one off. It's a problem I've faced since day-1 with this phone. Time to upgrade, I guess.

H