The fastest way to bulk select hundreds of emails at once on your iPhone

Okay, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Isn’t that just a Select All button in the mail?”Yes and no. If the view you’re in has a “Select All”button and you really want to select all items, then great – use it. But when you’re selecting emails from a mail search, or just want to select some but not all in your inbox, there’s a hidden gesture you don’t use on your iPhone.

In fact, this gesture is a mixture of several different gestures. If your fingers are nimble enough, selecting hundreds of emails at once can take a few seconds. Again, using the Select All button is the fastest way to select everything in a given mailbox, but this won’t show up when searching mail. And if you only want to mark a quarter, a half, or whatever, “Select All”is not the route to go.

Watch the video to see how the trick works, then scroll down to see the explanation. You can use the multi-select trick for the Mail app in iOS 13, iOS 14, and iOS 15.

A multi-select gesture you probably already use

First, there’s two-finger panning, which has been around since iOS 13. If you don’t know what “two-finger panning “means, you swipe two adjacent fingers over the items you want to select, and Mail automatically enters edit mode and selects them. for you. If you don’t like using those two fingers, you can tap Edit like you always do, and then use one finger to swipe over the circles with the items you want.

Fast scroll gesture to drag the scroll bar

Secondly, there is an interactive scroll bar in mail lists, which also appeared in iOS 13. If you swipe up or down on the page to start scrolling, the scroll bar will appear on the side and you can press and hold the time stick or scroll indicator and drag it up or down the track for faster scrolling.

Now combine the two for an even faster selection

Combine one-finger dragging and quick swipe gestures and you have an even faster way to bulk select emails.

one finger to select, one finger to scroll (FAST)

Enter edit mode in the list by clicking Edit or by panning with two fingers. Then tap and swipe up or down a little with one finger in a circle to let him know that you want to select multiple letters. Then, while holding your finger on the left side where something is flagged, with another finger scroll up or down the screen, and you will select several letters faster than before.

one finger select, one finger drag-scroll (FASTER)

To make it even faster, when you use your second finger to scroll up while selecting items with your first finger, you will see a temporary scroll bar indicator appear. Hurry up and click on it, then drag it up or down to highlight emails in lightning speed.

one finger to select, one to drag and scroll, one to swipe (FAST)

If that wasn’t enough, there is a way to go even faster. While holding the scroll bar handle, swipe your third finger up or down the screen, depending on which direction you want to scroll. If you click hard enough, you will be taken to the end of the list.

If you haven’t watched the demo video yet, here it is: