# Emptying "sent items" in outlook express

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emptying-sent-items-in-outlook-express/138511>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 24, 2002, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emptying-sent-items-in-outlook-express/138511 "2002-11-24T19:30:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Road\_Rash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a8b319/32.png) [@Road\_Rash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Road_Rash)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emptying-sent-items-in-outlook-express/138511/1 "2002-11-24T19:30:47Z")

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A simple right click, and my deleted items go to the recycle bin. I delete junk mail to the “deleted items” in almost real time as they download.

Why can I not do this with “sent items?” I have to delete them one at a time. There’s a thousand or so of them, and I don’t care to do it one at a time.

What do I do?

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**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emptying-sent-items-in-outlook-express/138511/2 "2002-11-24T19:40:00Z")

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CTRL + A to select all, then delete. Delete from deleted items, they’ll be gone.

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**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emptying-sent-items-in-outlook-express/138511/3 "2002-11-24T19:44:09Z")

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Have you tried going to Edit and “Select All”?

Works for me.

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**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emptying-sent-items-in-outlook-express/138511/4 "2002-11-24T20:18:10Z")

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If you like, you can also go to Tools \> Options \> Send and uncheck “Save copy of sent messages in the ‘Sent items’ folder.”

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**Author:** ![Tir\_Tinuviel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emptying-sent-items-in-outlook-express/138511/5 "2002-11-24T22:11:22Z")

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Left click on the first message to highlight it. Scroll down to the end, hold down the shift key and left click on the last message. This will highlight all of the messages, then just hit delete.  
🙂