How to Unflag All Emails on iPhone Manually
When you flag an email, it gets marked with either a flag (in Apple Mail or Outlook) or a star (in Gmail or Yahoo). Flagging can serve as a helpful reminder to check back on the message later. It draws attention to important emails, helping you avoid inbox blindness and ensuring you don’t miss key messages.
However, because flagging is as simple as a click, you might accidentally flag non-priority messages. Unflagging them can help you organize your inbox and keep the email settings on your iPhone tidy.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to unflagging emails in the default mail client for Apple, the Apple Mail app, covering iOS 14, iOS 15, iOS 16, iOS 17, iOS 18, and devices like the iPhone 2018, iPhone 2019, iPhone 2020, iPhone 2021, iPhone 2022, or even the latest iPhone 2024 models.
- Open the Apple Mail app.
- Go to your Flagged mailbox. You can find it under Mailboxes.
- Click Select in the upper right-hand corner.
- Choose the emails you want to unflag by clicking the circle next to each message.
- Once done, tap Mark at the bottom of the screen.
- Choose Unflag from the list of options.
This will remove the flag labels from the emails you selected. However, if you have hundreds of flagged messages, you’ll need to click each one individually, which can be tedious and time-consuming.
⚠️ If you’re wondering how to unflag emails on iPhone all at once, there’s no direct option to do so using the Mail app—unless you scroll through and select them manually, which can take a while if you have hundreds of flagged emails.
💡 Handling large numbers of flagged emails can be especially frustrating for users with busy inboxes or those using multiple mail accounts. In these cases, a bulk management tool like Clean Email, which offers cross-account support, will make the process a lot easier.
How to Unflag All Emails on iPhone Using the Gmail App
If you use the Gmail app on your iPhone, you might have noticed that instead of "flagging" emails, Gmail uses a "star" system. Starring an email in Gmail works much like flagging in Apple Mail because it helps you mark important messages for quick access later. Here’s how to unflag all emails on iPhone in the Gmail app.
- Open the Gmail app.
- Tap the Menu icon (the three stacked lines) in the top-left corner.
- Scroll down and click the Starred label to see all your starred emails.
- Unstar emails by clicking the star next to each message.
⚠️ While you can manually remove stars from multiple messages this way, there’s no option to unstar all emails at once in the Gmail mobile app on iPhones. For users who have dozens (or hundreds) of starred emails, clicking each one individually is time-consuming.
💡 If you’re tired of this process, Clean Email provides a much faster solution. With its bulk selection functionality, you can quickly view all starred emails, bulk-select them, and remove dozens or even hundreds of stars in just a few taps.
How to Unflag All Emails on iPad
If you’re working from an iPad, the process to unflag emails is very similar to what you’d do on an iPhone. The difference is you’re just working with a slightly larger interface and a few layout changes depending on your device model.
Here’s how to unflag emails directly in the iPad Mail app. These steps should work whether you’re using an iPad Air, iPad mini, or iPad Pro.
- Open the Mail app.
- Tap Mailboxes in the sidebar and select Flagged.
- In the upper right, click Edit.
- Choose the messages you want to unflag by tapping the circle next to each one.
- Click Mark at the bottom of the screen.
- Choose Unflag to remove the flags from the selected emails.
While the larger screen makes it a little easier to navigate through emails compared to an iPhone, the same limitation applies. The Mail app doesn’t offer a Select All option inside the Flagged folder.
💡 Related read: learn how to attach files and photos to emails on an iPhone.
How to Mass Unflag Emails on iPhone With Clean Email
If you want to unflag multiple emails on your iPhone, doing this manually is usually the way to go. You need to go to the Flagged folder, tap a few emails, and hit Unflag, which quickly turns into a slow, frustrating process. This is especially true if you're dealing with hundreds of flagged messages scattered across different accounts.
Neither Apple Mail nor Gmail’s mobile app offers an easy option to instantly highlight all flagged/starred messages at once. You have to click each message individually, making it nearly impossible to mass unflag emails efficiently. Even if you’re using a newer device like an iPhone 2022 or iPhone 2024 running iOS 18, the native apps still haven’t solved this basic problem. That’s where Clean Email steps in.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to quickly unflag emails on iPhone using the Clean Email app for iOS (the app uses stars instead of flags, but they serve the same purpose as flags in Apple Mail):
- Download the Clean Email app, open it and log in with your credentials.
- Open the left-side menu, and scroll down to the Mailbox section, choose Starred.
- Tap the Select button at the bottom.
- Tap Select All to choose all messages in the Starred folder.
- Tap More at the bottom right corner of the screen.
- From the action menu, select Remove Star.
- In the confirmation window, tap Confirm to unflag all selected messages.
If you want to save even more time, Clean Email also lets you create automated rules that remove stars from messages without any manual effort. Here’s how to set it up:
- Open the Clean Email app.
- In the left-hand menu, tap Auto Clean.
- Tap Create Rule.
- On the rule setup screen, tap Old Mail (you can keep the default Older than 6 months or select a different time frame). Optionally, you can add other conditions, such as Unread, specific senders, or domains.
- Under Apply Action, tap Choose action.. and select Remove Star.
- Tap Create Rule to activate it.
Clean Email is designed to work seamlessly across iPhone, iPad, and the web, so you can manage flagged (starred) emails and automate tasks no matter which device you're using.
How to Unflag Multiple Emails on iPhone in Other Apps
Not everyone sticks to just the Apple Mail app or Gmail. If you’re using other email apps on your iPhone (like Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or even accessing Hotmail or iCloud Mail through Safari) you’ll find that unflagging multiple messages isn’t always straightforward.
In the Outlook app, for example, you can remove flags by taking the following steps:
- Open the app, tap Filter, and choose Flagged.
- Tap the messages you want to unflag.
- Tap the crossed-out flag icon to remove the flag.
💡 Note: In the Outlook mobile app, you can select one message, then tap Select All to unflag all flagged messages at once.
📌 Flagging an email on Outlook is just as straightforward as unflagging it.
For Yahoo Mail, the process for unflagging emails is as follows:
- Opening Yahoo Mail and clicking the Starred filter at the top.
- Selecting messages you want to unstar.
- Tapping More.
- Clicking Unstar.
💡 Similar to Outlook, Yahoo also offers a bulk unflagging feature on mobile.
If you’re accessing Hotmail or iCloud Mail via Safari, the experience isn’t much better. You can remove flags by:
- Signing in to your email through your browser.
- Using filters to show flagged items.
- Clicking each message or using a multi-select option to remove the flags.
However, mobile web versions tend to be clunky and slow, especially if you’re trying to manage a large number of emails on the go.
💡Tip: if you’re wondering “Why am I not receiving emails on my iPhone?”, you might need to check your network speed and storage.
Use Clean Email for Better Email Management
When it comes to managing a busy inbox, manual tools only get you so far. Whether you’re trying to unflag dozens of messages across multiple email categories or just keep your inbox clean day to day, Clean Email gives you more control than what native apps can offer.
One of the biggest advantages is that you can connect multiple accounts (personal, work, school, etc.) and manage them all from a single dashboard. No more switching between apps or accounts. Clean Email is compatible with iOS and iPadOS, and is fully optimized for devices like the iPhone 2018 and newer.
Beyond simple bulk actions, Clean Email offers powerful features designed to save you time and keep your inbox organized automatically.
Cleaning Suggestions help you identify emails you might want to archive, delete, or move based on your habits and message types.
Unsubscriber lets you easily opt out of multiple unwanted newsletters and promotional emails with just a tap.
Smart Folders automatically group similar messages—like Social notifications, Online Shopping, Finance and Insurance, or Travel-related emails—so you can process them faster.
And there’s even more to explore—Clean Email is free to try, so you can see how it works for your inbox.
