Quickly Deleting Many Messages at Once on Your Nokia E61
I send and receive a a lot of SMS and emails. Consequently my message inboxes quickly gets clogged with messages. The problem is that I want to keep some messages while throwing out most of them. Instead of going throw my message inboxes and deleting message after message, and saving a few messages, I am using two ways to cut down on time to clean up my message inboxes.
The first way to manage this is to mark the messages I want to delete. I do this by holding down the shift key (arrow up) while moving the joystick up or down. That will mark the messages I want to delete. I then press the backspace key and that will prompt a message asking if I want to delete them.
The second way of quickly cleaning out my mailboxes is by selecting "Mark All" and then do the reverse. For each message I want to keep I press the shift key (arrow up) while pressing in the joystick, or if I want to deselect several messages keep the shift key pressed in while moving the joystick up or down. I then use the backspace key to delete the marked messages.

August 4th, 2006 at 12:39 am
This is totally unrelated to the tips above.
I’m having difficulties with the music player updating my mp3 songs in the Music Player library.
I copy the songs to the miniSD via the card reader and then uses the Update Library in Music Player to update the songs. Everytime, it only manage to detect only 10 out of the 90 songs that I copied and then it kinda stop responding and sometimes it restart by itself. What did I do wrong?
Is there a faster way of updating the music library? Comemnts appreciated.
August 4th, 2006 at 3:41 am
Cool trick!
Thanks.
August 4th, 2006 at 7:06 am
You can also press the Ctrl button and click the joystick in. Then while still holding Ctrl you can press up and down to do a mutliple selection.
August 4th, 2006 at 7:57 am
m3nzz0,
That happened to me too once, phone becomes sometimes a little temperental (it happens that the music player does not updat, phone is too slow, etc). Some of the time you can fix issues yourself by formatting the device or by restting it. There are two ways, first you can enter *#7370#. This will reset it to the factory settings and wipe most of the stuff from the phone (contacts, connection settings etc), you can make a back up o the phone memory using PC Suite, after that format the phone with the code I gave above and then, restore the backup you already made with PC Suite, I assure you that the phone will star to work faster and you won´t have a problem. (this formatting has to be made to wipe the phone memory).
Regards
August 4th, 2006 at 9:04 am
And if you’re using, Email for Exchange (ActiveSync), there’s never a need to do a massive clean out as it keeps your inbox in sync with your outlook inbox.
August 4th, 2006 at 10:48 am
I don’t know who’s asking if they’re “there yet” but if they were asking me that often, they’d get a good slapping!
August 4th, 2006 at 10:57 am
LOL
you guys crack me up….
August 4th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Vjleon,
Thanks…. I’ve tried what you’ve advised. But still the same. Could it be of the firmware? Mine is 1.0610.04.04 (19-04-06). Should I get a firmware upgrade?
Anyway, just wanna check with you fellas, am I doing it right by copying the songs to miniSD and then update it to the music library. Who knows, I might miss something in the process.
August 4th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Hey i have an e61 with cingular coverage. I have been using cingular video and it worked very good for about a week and now it will not download and play the videos, it just says”cannot find server” i called cingular and they cant seem to find the problem. It worked before. I can surf the net fine, i have a gprs connection, i have no idea how to fix this. Please help! Thanks
August 4th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Oh, man. I was so gonna blog about this trick. I figured this out weeks ago, but you beat me to it! Curse you!
August 4th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Hi Scott,
You should still write about it. Spread the gospel
August 4th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Hello, the firmware you have is the same as mine, what brand of memory are you using? I use a 2GB topram mini SD (is the best) when I was having that problem I was using a kinston, then I switched to Topram and the problem was gone, I also did the formatting thing and now I have ot problem. The only problem I have now is that sometimes the player takes more time than normally when goes from a song to another, this maybe caused by the size of the memory (2GB)
August 5th, 2006 at 3:28 am
Vjleon,
Hmmm.. I am using a no-name or generic brand, 1GB mini SD. I’ll replace it and give it another go. Thanks.
August 5th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
[...] The second way of quickly cleaning out my mailboxes is by selecting “Mark All” and then do the reverse. For each message I want to keep I press the shift key (arrow up) while pressing in the joystick, or if I want to deselect several messages keep the shift key pressed in while moving the joystick up or down. I then use the backspace key to delete the marked messages. E-series Blog nokia s60 tips [...]
August 5th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Hi everyone. I have a concern which is slightly off topic. Ive been using E61 for a month now and i just noticed recently that when i send sms its slower than before. Usually, when i press the send button a pop up window appears then immediately the outbox icon appears, which means that the sending of the sms is already working in the background, while the screen goes back to the previous screen for you to do multitasking. This time however, when i send sms, the sending takes a longer time unlike before and the “sending” pop stays on the screen longer and doesnt allow me to do multitasking while messages are sending. I havent changed the settings whatsoever and my messages are not that many since i clean up my messages folder. I visited the Nokia Care shop here in the Philippines and they say its a common problem which can be temporarily solved by reformatting/flashing the firmware but the problem will come back. Currently, there is no new firmware to address this problem as per Nokia Care. Pls let me know if you similar problems and if you have other solutions.
August 5th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
thanx a lot… been looking the mark key on e61, but couldnt find it. twas a big help
August 5th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Hi Franco,
Glad this was helpful.
Zephyr,
a new release of the firmware is coming and should be available in the Nokia care store shortly. I don’t have any dates but everyone’s talking about the new firmware coming. Until then I would try the hard reset solution.
Cheers!
August 7th, 2006 at 2:19 am
On the E70, the Ctrl button is on the right-hand side, along with the joystick. So it’s very difficult to do the Ctrl+Joystick movements. Anyone know a better way? They should have swapped the menu button and the ctrl button.
And speaking of design flaws, how about putting the red cancel button next to the spacebar. GRR!!
August 8th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Question for you Ed - and anyone else who may be using Cingular.
Have you noticed any slowdown after setting up multiple mailboxes? My E61 ran so slowly, I removed all the email accounts and am scared to re-configure them - even though I am paying for unlimited data.
August 10th, 2006 at 4:15 am
Thanks for the great blog!
I tried this mail cleanout trick, which worked like a charm. However ever since my mail inbox (Gmail) on my E61 is all messed up.
Automatic email retrieval is down and I can’t seem to get it going again. Moreover while retrieving mail manually the connection breaks half-way through.
It worked perfectly before pulling in mail every 30 minutes on the dot.
What’s up doc?
August 12th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
I have a question for any E61 users out there. Is it possible to configure it so when you fill the SMS memory on your E61, it just overwrites the oldest message? I have an 8800 (and am thinking of upgrading), and find it insanely frustrating that my only options are to delete all messages or manually decide which messages to delete. I’m certain that my older phones had this function, and I was able to continue receiving messages without any ‘inbox full’ problems.
BTW I wrote to Nokia about the lack of this feature in the 8800, and was told that the lack of this feature was itself a feature… Madness — I can understand not having this enabled by default, but come on!
August 13th, 2006 at 6:29 am
Good Question Richj; I’m waiting on that answer as well
August 14th, 2006 at 2:43 am
Once by mistake i sent a mail to a wrong address and it got struck in the outbox with a question mark near the envelop icon. I tried moving it to draft, resending the same and deleting, but all in vain. finally i reformatted the whole thing and got my phone reinstalled.
Any idea how to remove the struck piece of junk in the pipe.
September 10th, 2006 at 6:36 am
I have the e70 and connect to my SBC email account. My problem is, the email headers remain on the phone after I delete the message and reconnect. I have my delete setting at “delete from phone and server” but the headers remain on the phone. The messages do get deleted on the other end.
Any ideas how to get rid of these things, before I get an inbox full notification?
JP
September 14th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
JohnP - I have the same problem with gmail. This happens with both types of deletes. Any advice?
September 15th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I have tried this email-delete shortcut and while I can select multiple emails to delete, when I hit the backspace key (key shows an arrow pointing to the left) all of my selected emails become unmarked- not deleted, any ideas what is up?
September 15th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Paul,
That is the wrong key. The backspace key is the black arrow pointing left.
Cheers
September 15th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
I AM using the black arrow key pointing to the left… its the key directly under the ‘P’ key…
- thanks!
September 29th, 2006 at 9:40 am
If you have an email account (for instance a gmail account) set up on your nokia e61, is there a way to not receive every new email that appears in your inbox in your new text message box? I got 25 messages from one email becuase it was two paragraphs long and text messages only can hold about four lines per message. So if there is some way to prevent that, please let me know, becuase this is blowing up my text message inbox.
Thanks-
October 4th, 2006 at 6:21 am
Is there anyway to apply the same technique (holding the shift key to select multiple msgs) to mark msgs as read? Often times I just want to mark everything in my inbox as read but that option disappears once multiple msgs are selected. Thanks.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Can you please provide instructions on how to hard reset?
# admin Says:
August 5th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Hi Franco,
Glad this was helpful.
Zephyr,
a new release of the firmware is coming and should be available in the Nokia care store shortly. I don’t have any dates but everyone’s talking about the new firmware coming. Until then I would try the hard reset solution.
Cheers!
October 30th, 2006 at 7:29 am
Hard reset is *#7370#
The default security code is 12345.
More such useful information from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_E61
December 23rd, 2006 at 6:55 pm
i second the mark all messages as read…. i can select multiple messages fine, but i want to keep them, not throw them away…
anyone have any ideas?
thanks for your time
Lee
January 2nd, 2007 at 3:40 am
My problem is, the email headers remain on the phone after I delete the message and reconnect. I have my delete setting at “delete from phone and server” but the headers remain on the phone. The messages do get deleted on the other end. I have a Nokia E61
January 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
The Mark/Unmark highlighted mail read (or lack of) really bugs me too. Those of us using blackberry connect will inevitently want to bulk mark mail received and read on our desktops during office hours. Hope someone knows a trick or two…
January 9th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Did someone soved the problem of deleting emails but headers remain? Like Samm asked on jan 2nd.
January 9th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
sorry “solved”
January 18th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I have a problem with my E61, my problem is that I stop receiving text message after a while. Sometimes it takes days for me to get any message. The only way I could get a message if I hard reset my phone and then see all of my messages that were missed. When I add my friend SIM card it works fine. My provider is Cingular. plus I just got a new SIM card too. What should i do? I need help
January 18th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Hi Ethan,
Do you have an SD card in your device? Try removing the SD card and have someone send you an SMS. I once had a weird thing going on with an SD card. Removing the sd card (miniSD) cleared everything up.
April 7th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I made a mistake and downloaded 2600 headers for yahoo mail, now my message section is soo slow, when I delete them I am still stuck with 2600 headers making it too slow to use messaging. how can i erase this without a hard reset?
April 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
i need help please. i got my Nokia E62 40 days ago and its been fine til last night. anytime i recieve a new text message there is a red star next to my little envelope and i cant open it. the center botton does not work and the “select” and then “open” does nothing either. called nokia and fido no one knows what to do. anyone ?help please? i can reply to them but cant open and read them.
thanks
April 19th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Hi Sherry,
The star next to the envelope indicates that you have unread messages. Try turning off the phone, removing the battery, re-insert the battery and then power on the phone. If that doesn’t work drop me an email and I will try to help you.
Cheers
Ed
April 19th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
hey thanks so much for your reply. i did all of that its still the same. i tried and sent a text to myself and its the same again. i cant open it . i tried to save it to a folder and see if i can open it that way that didnt work either. any idea what else i can try?
April 19th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Hmm,
One way of fixing this would be to perform a hard reset. However, that would wipe out all the data and restore the device to factory settings so before you do that you need to back up your information and make sure that you are OK with the device being cleaned out so to speak. I have seen hard reset fix most issues.
But before you try that perhaps you could send yourself the carrier settings (search for the blog post) perhaps sending yourself the carrier settings could fix the issue? (this might be a long shot but it easier done that a hard reset).
Also check out the Nokia support forum:
http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/
May 1st, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Excuse me people, just wondering if anyone has heard of this software which is available at motounlockuk.co.uk.
Apparently you can unlock Motorola mobile phones simply using the IMEI number, cutting out the need for a USB cable to link your phone to your PC. Just used it with my razr v3 and a rokr e1, and it certainly works, but what do i do now with an unlocked phone?
It’s for sale at 5 Pounds (UK), and i was wondering whether anyone had used it before. Sorry if i’ve posted in the wrong section!. Please Help!!
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:42 am
I have bought a nokia 7360. I want to do a hard reset, because it was the demo model out of the shop and there are unknown photo’s and other stuff in it. I tried the code *#7370# but it doesn’t work. Do I have to do something special for that? Turn the phone off, put my simcard out,…
Can somebody help me with this?
May 14th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Hi All,
I have a problem with my Nokia E61 that maybe you guys can help me with, my unit is not receiving text messages or delivery reports, I can send messages just fine, calls are ok too, I bought it a few weeks ago, it worked fine until a couple of days ago when this happened, I have done the following in attempting to repair,
Disconnect and reconnect Battery,
Remove SD card
Delete stored messages
Checked Message centre number (ok)
Put my sim card into another phone, it recevies texts ok then (eliminates network)
Any input would be greatly appreciated
Many Thanks in advance,
Ciaran
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:31 am
Hi does anyone know how to delete multiple sms using E65. I couldnt find the control key.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:09 am
Andy,
Go to Inbox -> pick any sms -> Options -> Mark all
unmark those that u wan to keep.
Then pick delete on any of the sms that’s marked (a green tick on the right)
And its done =) u can also do on “sent items” or outbox or any folder u wan.
July 19th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Hi,
I see some previous posts about this problem - headers not being deleted when they should be - anybody have any input on this?
Thanks
August 9th, 2007 at 9:41 am
errm.. may i know how to i delete multiple messages using E65, cos i tried holding on to the key below 9, and use the joystick to mark the messages but to no avail… =(
August 9th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
you use the little pencil icon button on the right side of the phone, hold that down and scroll through the messages. that will mark them as flagged and then you can delete selected.
September 17th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
having the same issue with my e61i that deleted email message headers are remaining on the phone. previously, they would stay on the phone only until I downloaded new email, then it would update and delete the deleted emails. now, although I’ve downloaded all email to a computer so there’s none on the server, a week’s worth of email headers are still on the phone.
aww, I really don’t want to have to do a hard reset. did anyone come up with a solution?
thanks!
September 17th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
having the same issue with my e61i that deleted email message headers are remaining on the phone. previously, they would stay on the phone only until I downloaded new email, then it would update and delete the deleted emails. now, although I’ve downloaded all email to a computer so there’s none on the server, a week’s worth of email headers are still on the phone.
I just found this on the nokia forums and it worked!
“If you want to delete it in a hurry you can select to delete from phone and server then hit options and “connect” let it connect up to the server, then simply exit messaging, before completely exiting the messaging application it will say “mailbox still connected, disconnect now?” then select yes and they will be deleted.”
September 26th, 2007 at 6:06 am
hello all,
E61i
want to delete email headers on the phone.
still waiting for someone to come up with a solution
thanks
gaurav
October 18th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
I have an E62 unable to send text message,i did software update still the same problem.I use nokia phoenix.what is the solution.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Hi
Same issue with the E50. I’m using the pop3 protocol but the only way (and this will prove true for you all as well) to delete the messages from the phone is to select the ‘delete from phone and server’ option. A pain if one would like the message to remain on the server as well. Not sure if this issue is specific to the E series nokia’s.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Hi,
I am using a nokia e62 which keeps hanging very often and if i keep too many messages it slows down the sending of new messages. I normally backup my messages from phone to pc, but i am unable to copy the same back to the phone thru pc suite.
Any suggestions would be really great!!!
Cheers,
Enric
March 16th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Good day guys,
1. I’m using and E62 for the past 8 months and using Mobile Office and mail exchange for my email
2. I have a few emails in my inbox that I have already deleted from my main mail box
3. I still have the same mails showing in my phone and does not sync with the main exchange server
4. Tried deleting it it shows the strike out icon
5. I can restore the message but cannot reply or forward
6. Need your help to have this rectified and would appreciate your help
March 23rd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Hi,
I deleted my pop3 mailbox in my E61i as described in (http://mobilepakistan.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/how-to-delete-email-mailbox-in-nokia-e61i/#comment-142). It had many emails in this mailbox before when I deleted it. I was hoping that when I delete the mailbox, all emails remained in the phone memory will be deleted as well. But then, when I checked the phone memory (Menu > Office > File Manager (select phone memory) > Option > Memory Details), I still see that it still reserved amount of space for my ‘supposedly already deleted’ emails, even i have no more email mailbox in my phone! How do I regain the space without hard reset/formatting it? Any suggestions/tricks? Thank you.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I finally found the solution to the emails that won’t delete…I sync with my SBC/Yahoo mail in 3 different accounts…
On the Phone, go to the mailbox you want to clean out. Select “Options->Mark/Unmark->Mark All” (or individually). Then “Options->Delete”. They remain as icons with a slash in them.
-Then go to the SBC/Yahoo (or other mail) site and delete them there.
-Now go back to that mailbox and select “Options->Connect”. Let it sync with SBC/Yahoo on the phone.
-Voila…no more messages.
I believe there’s some kind of security barrier that prevents the phone from deleting the messages on the other end. It may be adjustable but darned if I’ve found out how yet. In the meantime, at least my mailbox gets cleaned out.
JP