Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Weird hotkey (maybe?) mass-deleting emails

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by a2jc4life

more options

I had this issue a little over a year ago where something squirrely with my email, and it acted like I'd hit some hotkey to select 'most everything in my inbox -- and deleted it, when to MY eye, I'd selected a small handful of emails and hit delete. So it should have been deleting something like 8-20 messages and instead it deleted over 1000.

It took me a while to figure out what had happened, so I ended up having to move everything out of the trash folder as the only means of ensuring I restored all the newly-deleted messages. And then it happened again. Twice, I think. I was never able to figure out what happened, and hadn't had any further issues with it (but also still haven't had a chance to finish weeding through all the extra emails I had to restore from the trash in the process of restoring what I'd deleted).

ANYWAY...so fast-forward to today, and it did it AGAIN. And I absolutely cannot make sense of what's happening here.

What I SEE, when looking at the inbox, is a total of 4099 emails (I know, I know -- see above saga). I selected 6. These 6 were visibly selected. The taskbar showed that there were 6 selected. Somehow I accidentally opened them (accidentally double-clicked, I guess) instead of deleting them or in addition to hitting delete, and as I was X-ing out of those 6 email tabs, the program started deleting emails from the inbox. 4072. (Apparently afterward, it deleted the 6 I'd highlighted, because I had to undo twice to restore everything, and it put back the 6 first, and then the 4072.)

None of this makes any sense to me. The 6 messages were still visibly -- and apparently actively -- highlighted. 4099-4072 is not 6, so it didn't invert the selection and delete everything else. 4072 is not EVERYTHING in the inbox, so it didn't just delete the entire contents of the folder. I count 28 emails visible in the list on the screen without scrolling, so it deleted only messages that were not visibly accessible to click on. But it didn't delete ALL the non-visible messages, because the difference is 27, not 28.

This is making me crazy, because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out WHAT combination of clicks/keystrokes/magic is causing this to happen -- which means I can't ensure it does NOT happen.

What gremlin is this?

Is there some hotkey combination I can unprogram so it doesn't do this again, or is it a bug, or...?

I had this issue a little over a year ago where something squirrely with my email, and it acted like I'd hit some hotkey to select 'most everything in my inbox -- and deleted it, when to MY eye, I'd selected a small handful of emails and hit delete. So it should have been deleting something like 8-20 messages and instead it deleted over 1000. It took me a while to figure out what had happened, so I ended up having to move ''everything'' out of the trash folder as the only means of ensuring I restored all the ''newly''-deleted messages. And then it happened again. Twice, I think. I was never able to figure out what happened, and hadn't had any further issues with it (but also still haven't had a chance to finish weeding through all the extra emails I had to restore from the trash in the process of restoring what I'd deleted). ANYWAY...so fast-forward to today, and it did it AGAIN. And I absolutely cannot make sense of what's happening here. What I SEE, when looking at the inbox, is a total of 4099 emails (I know, I know -- see above saga). I selected 6. These 6 were visibly selected. The taskbar showed that there were 6 selected. Somehow I accidentally opened them (accidentally double-clicked, I guess) instead of deleting them or in addition to hitting delete, and as I was X-ing out of those 6 email tabs, the program started deleting emails from the inbox. 4072. (Apparently ''afterward'', it deleted the 6 I'd highlighted, because I had to undo twice to restore everything, and it put back the 6 first, and ''then'' the 4072.) None of this makes any sense to me. The 6 messages were still visibly -- and apparently actively -- highlighted. 4099-4072 is not 6, so it didn't invert the selection and delete everything else. 4072 is not EVERYTHING in the inbox, so it didn't just delete the entire contents of the folder. I count 28 emails visible in the list on the screen without scrolling, so it deleted only messages that were not visibly accessible to click on. But it didn't delete ALL the non-visible messages, because the difference is 27, not 28. This is making me crazy, because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out WHAT combination of clicks/keystrokes/magic is causing this to happen -- which means I can't ensure it does NOT happen. What gremlin is this? Is there some hotkey combination I can ''un''program so it doesn't do this again, or is it a bug, or...?

All Replies (2)

more options

Using a laptop keyboard? Than FN key changes the active function of keys so might be involved. Another oldie but a goodie is a flat battery in the mouse or keyboard. Odd weirdness results from incomplete or inaccurate transmissions.

more options

It is a laptop keyboard. The Fn key on this keyboard takes a lot of effort to engage, though, so I'm fairly certain I'm not hitting it unwittingly. Built-in keyboard and mouse, of course, and I'm plugged into a wall outlet, so low batteries are an unlikely culprit, as well.