🍎 How to Bulk Delete Emails from iCloud Mail (2025 Guide for @icloud.com & @me.com)

🤯 The iCloud Email Reality: No “Select All” Magic, Just Elbow Grease

Unlike Gmail, Apple Mail doesn’t give you powerful bulk tools like “Select all conversations that match this search.” If you want to wipe thousands of emails from your @icloud.com or @me.com inbox, you’ll need to use a few workarounds.

But don’t worry — we’ve tested every single way to make it suck less. 💪

💻 Method 1: Bulk Delete iCloud Emails on a Mac (Fastest & Easiest)

🔥 If you have access to a Mac, use this. Period.

✅ Steps (Apple Mail app on macOS):

1. Open the Mail app
2. Select the account (e.g. iCloud, @me.com) from the sidebar
3. Click Inbox, Junk, or any folder you want to clean
4. Press Command (⌘) + A to select all emails in that folder
5. Press Delete (⌫) or right-click → Move to Trash

🧹 Empty the Trash:

• Go to the Trash folder
• Right-click → Erase Deleted Items
• Confirm Erase, and gone

📸 [Insert screenshot: Apple Mail inbox with all emails selected]

📲 Method 2: Mass Delete Emails on iPhone or iPad

💡 Good news. iOS does have a “Select All” feature in Mail.

✅ Steps (iPhone/iPad Mail app):

1. Open the Mail app
2. Tap Mailbox → Choose the folder (e.g. Inbox, Promotions, ads, Trash)
3. Tap Select in the top-right
4. Then tap Select All in the top-left
5. at the bottom, tap Trash 🗑️ or Move to another folder

⚠️ In a mailbox folder, list view of emails, Apple hides power-user actions like "the two-finger drag" – Use two fingers to drag down and select hundreds at once (yes, really). That is really the MVP.

🎥 You love video? We gotchu:

YouTube Short for select All and Two-Finger Drag Trick

🌐 Method 3: Use iCloud.com in a Browser (Works, but Painfully Slow)

If you don’t use a Mac, this is your next best shot.

✅ Steps:

1. Go to https://www.icloud.com/mail
2. Log in with your Apple ID
3. Click Inbox (or other folder)
4. Press Ctrl (Windows) + A to select all emails in that folder
   Or hold Ctrl (Windows) and click to select multiple emails
   Or use Shift + Click to select a large batch
5. Click the Trash icon

⚠️ You maybe only load ~50–100 emails per page, Patience required. There’s still no “select all” button, but you can always trust Command or Ctrl + A.

🧼 Method 4: Auto-Filter Emails First (Optional but Smart)

If you're cleaning junk or newsletters, sort first:

• In Apple Mail (Mac): Use the Filter button to show:
  • Only unread
  • Only flagged
  • Only messages from known senders
• In iCloud.com: Use the Search bar with basic filters like subject: or from:
  (But don’t expect Gmail-level filters.)

Then mass select + delete.

🧠 TL;DR – iCloud vs. Gmail: What’s Different?

🔥 Pro Tip: Delete in Batches, Not All at Once

Apple Mail doesn’t love bulk delete of 20,000+ emails.
To avoid crashes or slowness:

• Delete by folder (Inbox, Sent, Trash, etc.)
• Delete 1,000–5,000 emails at a time
• Empty Trash between batches

💡 Can I Undo Email Deletion?

Only before emptying the Trash.

• Deleted emails stay in the Trash for 30 days
• To restore: Open Trash → Select email → Move back to Inbox

🔗 Related Posts

• 📬 How to Mass Delete Emails in Gmail — The Easy and Efficient Way (2025)