Delete Email Messages in Outlook

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Overview

Binghamton University email uses Google Workspace for Education as our email service provider but many use Outlook to view and manage their email messages.

Microsoft Support Article on Deleting Emails.

Deleting all messages in a specific folder

If you use Outlook to view your Binghamton University email, you can delete all of the messages in a folder by right clicking the folder and selecting Delete All. This will move the messages to your Deleted Items Folder. You can then access the Deleted Items folder to view messages you have deleted. By default they are held in the Deleted Items Folder for 30 days, but you can manually or automatically empty the contents of the Deleted Items Folder.

This is a message to right click and delete messages in a folder

Deleting selected messages in a specific folder

If you would like to delete messages in a folder based on one of Outlooks 'Arrange by' options, click on the specific folder and Select an Arrange by option, it is already defaulted to one of them, in this example it is Date.

In Outlook you can arrange messages by Date, From, To, Categories, Flag Status, Flag: Start Date, Flag: Due Date, Size, Subject, Type, Attachments, Account, and Importance.

Make sure you consider how to Filter and how you would like them to be Sorted.

If you would like to delete old messages you can arrange by Date, Filter to see All Mail, and Sort by Oldest. This arranges the view to show old messages at the top. Make sure you use the navigation bar to scroll up to the top to view the oldest messages.

This is an image to filter a folder to arrange by date

Once you have Arranged, Filtered, and Sorted, you can select messages to delete. To select multiple email messages click on the first message and then hold the Shift key to select the last message. It will select all messages in between, and you can right click to Delete.

You can also select messages not in order, and individually, by selecting your first message, holding the Ctrl key, and then selecting each message individually.

Select sequential messages selected by selecting the first message, Shift, and then clicking the last message to include ALL in between. Right click and select Delete.

This is an image to select specific messages

Select individual messages selected by selecting the individually, Ctrl, and then clicking each individual message while holding Ctrl.

This is an image that shows how to select individual images by using ctrl

Manually Empty Deleted Items (Trash)

Right click on the Deleted Items folder and select to Empty Folder.

This is an image of right clicking and deleting the deleted items contents

Automatically Empty Deleted Items (Trash)

There is a setting you can set in Outlook that will automatically delete the contents of the Trash or Deleted Items Folder when exiting the Outlook program.

Select File -> Options, then select Advanced.

Look for the Setting, Outlook Start and Exit.

Select the Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting check box.

This is an image of the setting to delete messages on exit

To be notified before the contents of the Deleted Items are emptied, scroll down to the Other section on that same Advanced settings window and check the box next to Prompt for confirmation before permanently deleting items.

Archiving emails

If you are archiving your messages they are still on the Google server. If you want to delete all of your archived items you would right click on the folder and select to Delete All. If you want to delete specific archived emails you would open the Archived mail folder and manually select the messages you want to delete, then right click and select Delete All.

Deleting Archived Messages

Delete All Archived messages

This is an image that showes deleting all archived messages

Delete Select Archived Messages

This is an image showing select message in archived to delete

If you would like assistance, please feel free to contact the Binghamton University ITS Help Desk at 607-777-6420 or Submit a Request, and we'll be happy to help.