You may need to move, forward, or delete your Outlook mails, but repeating the same process for several emails can be frustrating when you can select multiple emails and do it all at once.
This post will show you how to select multiple emails in Outlook. Check it out!
How To Select Multiple Emails in Outlook Desktop?
Organizing your emails into folders or deleting old emails in Outlook may consume too much time and reduce your productivity. Still, you can save some time by selecting multiple emails together.
There are different ways to select multiple emails in Outlook from your computer. You can select multiple emails individually, select a group of emails together, or select all emails.
Let’s go through the steps for each case before considering how to do the same from the Outlook mobile app.
How To Select Multiple Emails Individually?
You can select multiple emails individually in a case where you want to select a mail but skip the few ones next to it before selecting another one farther in the list.
Here is an illustration;
Suppose you have ten emails in your inbox and wish to select the first, fourth, sixth, and eighth emails; you will skip the second, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth emails.
How do you achieve this?
Select the emails individually using the Ctrl key. Here are the required steps:
Step 1: Go to Outlook
First, visit the Outlook – free personal email page on your computer or launch the Outlook desktop app.
Step 2: Sign In
Sign in to your outlook email and calendar account as follows:
- Click on the Sign in button at the top right side of the page.
- Enter your email, phone, or skype in the field when the sign-in page displays and click Next.
- Enter your Microsoft account password on the next page and click the Sign-in button.
The system will log in to your account and take you to your Outlook mailbox. You may skip this step if you are already signed in since the link will take you straight to your inbox.
Step 3: Select the Emails Folder
Outlook will take you to your inbox by default, but you can select the folder containing the emails you wish to select if they are not in the inbox.
Locate all available folders on the page’s left sidebar and click a folder once to select it.
Step 4: Select Individual Emails
You can now select multiple emails individually in three steps.
- Press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard.
- Navigate with your mouse and click on each email to select it. You can scroll up and down with the mouse while holding the Ctrl key.
- Release the Ctrl key when you have clicked the last email.
You should not release the Ctrl key till you have clicked the last email you want to select because you will lose all selections if you click a mail after releasing it. You can also click an email you selected again while holding the Ctrl key to unselect it.
Alternatively, hover the cursor over the first email you want to select, and a check box will appear to the left of the email.
Click the check box to select the email, and you will see a checkbox to the left of all other emails in the folder. Click each checkbox to select the corresponding email to it.
How to Select a Group of Emails On desktop?
When can you select a group of emails? You can select a group of emails if the emails follow each other consecutively, at least in twos. That is, if two or more emails are next to each other. Take the following steps after signing in.
- Click the first email in the group you want to select to highlight it.
- Press and hold the shift key.
- Select the last email in the group.
- Release the shift key.
This method will select all the emails in the group you selected, including the first and last emails you clicked and every email between them.
However, you can unselect emails from the group if it includes any email you do not want to select. Press and hold the Ctrl key, then select the emails you want to exclude.
Note that you will lose all the selections if you click any email after releasing the Ctrl key.
How to Select All Emails Together?
You can select all the emails in a folder in three ways. Check them out below:
Option 1: Select Each Email Individually
The first option is to select each email individually while you hold the Ctrl key or click the checkboxes till you get to the last email in the folder, but it may take much time to achieve this, especially if you have many emails.
Option 2: Select All Emails as a Group
Since you can select multiple emails in groups, you can select all the emails in a folder as a group too. Start by clicking the first email in the folder, then hold down the shift key and click the last email in the folder.
This option is more effective than the first but is not the best.
Option 3: Use Keyboard Shortcut Keys
Using keyboard shortcut keys will help you quickly select all emails in a folder. Hence, it is advisable always to use this option, and here are two ways to do this with two different operating systems.
- Press Ctrl + A on a Windows OS.
- Press Command + A on a Mac OS.
How To Select Multiple Emails in the Outlook Mobile App?
You can select multiple emails on the Outlook mobile app in two ways. Long-pressing the first email and clicking other emails individually or clicking the picture to the left of all emails you want to select.
Before you begin, you should have the Outlook mobile app on your mobile device. But, if you don’t, you can install it from your device’s app store.
Let’s discuss the steps in detail.
Step 1: Open the Outlook App
Open the installed outlook app from your device start menu.
Step 2: Sign In
You must sign in to your Outlook account if you recently installed the Outlook mobile app.
- Tap Add account.
- The Outlook app may find existing accounts on your device if there are any. Click your account from the list and click continue if it does.
- Click SKIP THIS ACCOUNT if you do not own any of the accounts found.
- Enter your email in the next screen and click continue if you choose the SKIP THIS ACCOUNT option or if you did not see the Accounts Found screen. You can also use the Add Google Account option.
- Enter your Microsoft password and click Sign in to continue.
Step 3: Select the Emails Folder
The app will take you to your inbox by default, but you can select the folder containing the emails you want to select if they are not in the inbox.
Click the Outlook logo at the top-left of the screen, and the tab containing the folders will slide in from the left Next, select your desired folder from the options.
Step 4: Select the Emails
There are two options to select multiple emails, as mentioned earlier.
Option 1
- Tap and hold the first email you want to select until a checkmark appears to the left of it. A selection counter will appear at the top of the screen to indicate the number of items you selected.
- Tap every other email you want to select; the counter will increase simultaneously. Note that you do not need to long-press all other emails after the first.
- You can quickly select multiple emails by swiping down immediately after the checkmark appears while holding down on the first email.
Option 2
You can select multiple emails from your Outlook mobile app by tapping the profile picture or icon to the left of each email.
- Tap the picture or icon once, and a checkmark will appear over the picture or icon.
- Tap every other email you want to select, and the checkmark will appear over the attached picture or icon.
- You will also see the selection tracker at the top of the screen to track the number of selected emails.
Conclusion
Selecting multiple emails can save time and productivity in organizing your Outlook mail list, and the methods in this post will help. Your preferred method may depend on the number of emails you want to select and their position in the folder.
