Tips for Cleaning up Webmail

WebMail Cleanup Tips

This page will help you to reduce the amount of email you have stored on UCs servers.  This will lower your quota and will help you reduce the clutter.

Login to webmail in another windows or using another browser and follow along with the following tips (this page can also be printed if you'd rather):

Tip 1:  

See more messages.

Click on the Options tab and then the layout link.  Here you can change "Messages per Page" to as many as 100 so you can look at the most email at one time.  In some situations showing fewer is helpful because you can delete entire pages of email at once.  You'll have to see what works best for you.

Tip 2:

 Selecting Multiple messages.

To use the following tips it's good to know how to select many messages at one time.  In webmail you can select an entire page of emails by clicking on the Select all button.  If you're using a program like Thunderbird you can also choose to click on the first message you want to select, hold the Shift key, and then click on the last message you want to select.  Everything in between will be selected and then you can move or delete the selection.

Tip 3:

Start at the end.

Each time you delete messages it pulls in more from the following pages.  Viewing email starting at the last page makes it cleaner to navigate.  You can use the drop down above the Received column to choose which page to view.  Choose the last one in the drop down list to get to the last page.

Tip 4:

 Sort by Date.

The oldest emails you have are the most likely to be obsolete.  By default your emails are sorted by the Received column with the newest at the top.  If you decide that email older than a certain date can be removed just start at the end of your email (the oldest), use the select all button and delete entire pages of messages until you have removed the old mail.

Tip 5: 

Sort by Subject.

You may have many emails that you don't need anymore because they were just automated notices.  For example notices from Facebook, "Your UC password will expire soon" warnings, or auto replys from people's vacations.  To sort by subject just click on the word Subject at the top of the mail list.  This will alphabetize them, ignoring RE and Fwd at the beginning of each message.  You can then go through your email page by page and select emails in large groups.  Once you have multiple emails selected click the Delete button at the top or bottom of the email list.

Tip 6: 

Sort by Sender.

Emails from specific people or groups you may not need anymore.  If you don't want old copies of the daysheet or you have a newsletter you receive weekly you can sort them together to delete them in groups.  Click on the From column header to alphabetize your emails by sender.  As before you can now select messages in large groups and delete them.

Tip 7:

 Check the SPAM.

Open your SPAM folder and check to be sure no legitimate messages were sent to SPAM accidentally.  If there are any emails you wish to keep, click the box next to the message(s), click the Move to Folder drop down menu at the top or bottom of the page, and choose Inbox.  Once you've done that, use Select All and Delete to remove all Spam emails from the system.

Tip 8:

 Clear your Trash.

Wth all the deleting you've been doing I bet you have lots of Trash.  Click on Managed Folders at the bottom of the folders list. Now click on the Empty Trash button.   For some users you made have multiple folders, like Trash, or Deleted Mail, you'll have to delete those messages separately and then empty Deleted Messages.