# Hotmail: Why have they made it so hard to delete multiple messages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 24, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465 "2009-05-24T15:40:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465/1 "2009-05-24T15:40:00Z")
I’m about to scream. Hotmail has done something to the interface, so when I’m checking off a series of messages I want to delete, if I don’t hit the check box exactly, the whole series of boxes gets unchecked. This is happening repeatedly. WTF? ---
**Author:** ![TheMadHun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@TheMadHun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMadHun)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465/2 "2009-05-24T22:32:32Z")
I sympathize. Just be grateful you aren’t on Google’s gmail which has all sorts of tricks. For example, it’s several steps to actually delete a message, and when you do it will insist on deleting the entire “set”, which includes the incoming message and your reply. Often I’ve wanted to lose one or the other but not both. Throughout programming erasures are a bit odd. In most online email systems you cannot delete a message without closing it first, unlike Outlook and other PC-based systems. ---
**Author:** ![IAmNotSpartacus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465/3 "2009-05-24T22:41:46Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I’m about to scream. Hotmail has done something to the interface, so when I’m checking off a series of messages I want to delete, if I don’t hit the check box exactly, the whole series of boxes gets unchecked. This is happening repeatedly. WTF? 99.9999% something is wrong with your browser. I have no problem selecting or deselecting and if I don’t check the box exactly then nothing happens. It’s kind of hard to build a website that caters to 8 different browsers that interpret HTML and Javascript in 16 different fashions. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465/4 "2009-05-24T22:59:25Z")
The only way I can reproduce your results is if I select some boxes, then click outside a box and _drag_ the cursor across the screen. If you just click outside the box without dragging, it shouldn’t do anything. Are you sure you are just clicking and not dragging? ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465/5 "2009-05-24T23:42:54Z")
> [@](#): > > For example, it’s several steps to actually delete a message, and when you do it will insist on deleting the entire “set” Deleting an individual e-mail is not that difficult. Though it does involve some steps, but it’s possible. For example: I have a group of five e-mails open. The most recent one is the only one I can actually see, but that’s ok for this example. Towards the top of the e-mail there will be a “show details” option. To the right of that is “reply” and an arrow pointing down. Click on that arrow and you can choose to delete that specific message. In the case of my group of five, it will delete the most recent e-mail. If I wanted an older one deleted, I’d just click on the name of the sender of that e-mail to open up that specific e-mail and go from there. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465/6 "2009-05-25T02:44:45Z")
Yes, all I’m doing is clicking. And it happens using both Mac and PC and using any and all of Safari, Firefox, and Explorer. ---
**Author:** ![Starbury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Starbury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starbury)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotmail-why-have-they-made-it-so-hard-to-delete-multiple-messages/497465/7 "2009-05-25T14:12:05Z")
I have the same problem with Hotmail. I get a ton of junk emails, so I’ll have to delete several at a time and inevitably click outside of the checkbox at some point, resulting in all of the emails getting unchecked. The people that have not run into this problem, I suspect, are still running the “Classic” version of Hotmail which has a much more forgiving interface. There used to be an option that would allow you to switch between Classic and the new Windows Live version of hotmail, unfortunately they no longer allow you to do that.