Mark All Emails as Read in Outlook on iPhone Using Native Features
The Outlook app for iPhone lets you mark all unread emails as read in one go, but you need to select them one by one first. This is how:
- Launch the Outlook app.
- Tap and hold on any message.
- Tap all other messages you want to select or choose Select All option in the upper left corner.
- Tap the open envelope on the bottom toolbar.
The selected messages should now be marked as read. The native approach to marking messages as read works fine if you want to mark a handful of emails once or twice, but using it to keep a busy inbox organized long-term can be a huge time sink for the following two reasons:
- You can either select messages one by one or all at once. What you can’t do is select all messages from, let’s say, Microsoft + Google + another sender.
- You can’t create inbox filters (also referred to as rules) based on the selected messages to automatically mark future similar messages as read when they arrive.
To overcome these and other limitations of the Outlook app for iPhone, we recommend you use a third-party inbox organizer called Clean Email.
Automatically Mark All Unread Emails as Read on Iphone Using Clean Email
It can take a lot of time to manually select a large number of unread emails in the Outlook app so that you can mark them as read using the native option. If you would rather use your time more productively, then Clean Email has just the right solution for you: its pre-defined unread mail filter. Here’s how you can use it:
- Launch Clean Email and sign in to your Outlook inbox.
- Scroll down until you see the Unread Mail option in the Favorite Mail Filters section. Tap it.
- Tap Select and Select All.
- Tap Mark Read.
Okay, that was easy! But what if you want to mark only some messages? Perhaps those that were sent to you by specific senders? Well, that’s a matter of a few simple steps if you take advantage of Clean Email’s message grouping capabilities:
- Launch Clean Email and sign in to your Outlook inbox.
- Open the hamburger menu on the left and select the Inbox folder.
- (Optional) Use the Group By dropdown menu to change how messages are grouped.
- Tap the icon next to each message group you want to select, then choose Mark Read option to mark the selected groups as read.
If you want to automate this process then instead of the Mark Read option, tap the More button and then select the Create Rule option to create Auto Clean trigger conditions based on the selected message groups. You can then apply the Mark Read action to automatically mark all future (and optionally also existing) messages as read when the trigger conditions are met.
💡 Tip: But what if you only want to label as read older messages and keep the newest ones unread? Clean Email can do that too! Instead of tapping the Create Rule button, select the Keep Newest option instead to automatically open all messages except for those that each sender has sent to you the most recently.
By marking as read unread messages with Clean Email and relying on its other inbox cleaning features to stay organized, you can turn your Outlook email account into a more useful communication tool.
Summary
Now that you know how to label emails so they appear as if they’ve been opened, it’s up to you to put your newly acquired skills to good use. We recommend you take the time to automate the management of your Outlook inbox using Clean Email because you will save a lot of time in the long run. But if you just want to see the unread notification counter display zero, then the manual approach is a good way to get started.
FAQ
Can I select all messages in the Outlook iPhone app?
Yes, to select all emails in the Outlook iPhone app:
1. Launch the Outlook app.
2. Tap and hold on any message.
3. Tap the Select All option.
Do I need a license for Clean Email to mark all messages as read on iPhone?
No, the latest version of Clean Email lets you mark up to 1,000 emails for free, and you can also try all of its other features.
