Mass Deleting Canvas in box

[LyndaElaine]

How can I mass delete the email in box in Canvas? Trying to clean this out is very time consuming and I don't need any of these emails. 

Thanks, 

Lynda Elaine

University of Nebraska Lincoln
Instructor and Grad Student.

[KristinL · Accepted solution]

Hi @LyndaElaine - If you are accessing your Canvas Inbox from a browser, you should be able to use CMD+A or CTRL+A to select all items in the window. You likely will need to repeat this, but it does speed up the process of cleaning out your Inbox. (You can also archive if you'd prefer!)

How do I delete a conversation as a student? 

[glen_hartman]

Hello,

Would be nice, if Canvas included a emails select all TAB.   that would make archiving emails much easier at the end of each semester.

regards, Glen

[Chris_Hofer]

Good morning, @LyndaElaine …

I totally agree with the feedback that @KristinL has provided.  I’ll add that there are a couple additional shortcut keystrokes you can use if you don’t want to select everything via the option that Kristin gave you.  It’s also possible to hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and then click on each message that you want to delete.  This will highlight only those messages that you want to delete, and then you can delete them.  Or, another way is to click on the first message that you’d like to delete in your Inbox.  Then, scroll to the last message you want to delete in your Inbox.  Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then click on that last message.  This will highlight the span of messages that you want to delete (from the first message you selected to the last).  Then you can delete all those messages at once.  Much of this (and also what Kristin mentioned in her response) is covered in the following Guides:

• How do I delete a conversation as an instructor?
• How do I delete a conversation as a student?

I hope this extra piece of information will be of some help to you.  Please let Community members know if you have any other questions about this…thanks!

[stephentomasovi]

I'm not sure if anything has changed since January of 2022, but I can't use the control key on my Windows device to select large chunks of emails to delete in the Canvas Inbox.  However, on my Windows device with Chrome browser, a method which worked for me was...

1. Click/select the top email's check box
2. Scroll down to the bottom email displayed
3. Press the Shift Key  and click/select the bottom email in the list
4. Then, delete those selected emails and repeat that process for the rest

So, for me it wasn't Control & clicking but Shift &clicking which worked to select large chunks of emails.  I hope this helps!

[Chris_Hofer]

@stephentomasovi ...

Using the Ctrl key has always been, as far as I'm aware, the option to click on individual messages and then delete them all at one time.  Using the Shift key is the option to select a range of messages.  This also works within a Windows environment when selecting files to delete.

[StephanieLay]

There is a slight "trick" to this process - click on the entire box, not just the tiny box, when highlighting the first and last emails to be deleted (shift-click on the last one btw).  Also, there is a slight hesitation before all of the boxes change to light blue - it'll happen!  😃