Learn how to delete single or multiple messages in your Yahoo! Mail account.

Yahoo! Mail offers several different ways to delete messages:

 Delete messages while viewing the content of your "Inbox" or another folder:

1. Check the boxes to the left of the all the messages you would like to delete.
2. Click the Delete button at the top (or bottom) of the list of messages.
3. To delete all of the messages currently showing in a folder, click the Check All link at the bottom of the list messages and then click the Delete button.

Delete message while reading a single message:

Click the Delete button at the top (or bottom) of the message to delete that specific message.

When you delete messages in Yahoo! Mail, they are transferred to your Trash folder. If you delete a message by mistake, simply find it in the "Trash" folder and move it back into your "Inbox" or another folder to recover it.

To manually empty the "Trash" folder and permanently remove the messages contained in it, click the Empty link next to "Trash" in the left navigation bar. Please remember that once messages are deleted from the "Trash" folder, they cannot be recovered.

Deleting Multiple Messages at once:

If you are trying to delete many messages at one time, the following steps would be the fastest way to do so:

1. Click Options, then select Mail Options from the pull-down arrow in the upper-right corner of your Mail page.
2. Click General from the list of options on the left side of the page.
3. Find the heading, Messages/results per page and use the pull-down menu to increase or decrease the number as desired.
4. Click Save Changes in the upper-left corner of the page.
5. Return to the folder which contains the messages you would like to delete.
6. Click the Check all link (located beneath the list of messages). Clicking this link will select the first 200 messages in the folder (or all of the messages if the folder contains less than 200).
7. Click the Delete button to delete the selected messages.
8. Repeat the above step for each screen of messages in the folder until all of the unwanted messages have been moved to the "Trash" folder.
9. Click the Empty link next to the Trash folder. Please remember that once messages are deleted from the "Trash" folder, they cannot be recovered.
    

Deleting mail from the "Spam" folder:

"Spam" folder messages are subject to automatic deletion after the time frame specified in your More Options. By visiting the "Spam" section under "More Options," you have the ability to select how long a message will remain in the "Spam" folder before deletion. Messages can be automatically removed after 1 month, 2 weeks, 1 week, or immediately.

When you delete messages in your "Spam" folder, they are removed from the server. Please note that they will not appear in the "Trash" folder. You can also empty the "Spam" folder manually by simply clicking the "Empty" link next to the "Spam" link on the left navigation bar. Clicking this will permanently delete all messages located in the "Spam" folder.

Please note: Residual copies of deleted messages may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers. They may also remain in our backup systems for an additional period of time.