Beginners guide to Symbian phones : Marking Multiple Items

This week’s Beginners Guide to Symbian Phones feature is How to Mark and Unmark multiple items .

Most users who have made a recent switch over to Symbian phones, dont know that you can mark and unmark multiple items for futher use.

This is one of the core features of the Symbian OS and it comes in very handy if you want to delete certain text messages in your inbox, or send a couple files to someone via bluetooth, etc etc. Here’s how you do it.

There are 2 methods to do this. There’s the long way and then there’s the short easy way :

- The long method :

We’re going to use the messaging application as an example in this walkthrough. But you can use the mark feature in other applications too (provided its supported).

Go to your messaging application and go to your inbox ( or your folders section or sent messages section).

In there, highlight (scroll over) the message you want to delete and press the left selection key to select “Options“. The following menu (or one similar to it) will pop up :

Then scroll to the “Mark/Unmark” option and press the center key or the left selection key :

Then select “Mark“. This will mark the text message you wanted to delete :

You can then choose to delete it or move it to another folder in your messaging application or whatever you wish to do with it.

You can also select all your messages by repeating the above steps but choosing “Mark all” instead of the “Mark” option :

If you wish to unmark a certain item, just repeat the above steps and choose “Unmark“. If you wish to unmark all the items you previously selected, choose “Unmark all“

Using the above methods you can choose which items (or messages in this example) that you wish to delete,and leave the rest :

-The short (easy) method :

There’s a much faster way to do the above steps. On your Symbian device you can use the pencil button (or the # key in newer devices which dont have the pencil button) or mark items.

Go to your messaging application and open your inbox :

Scroll over (highlight) the item you want to mark, and hold down the pencil button and press the center button on your symbian phone :
( Note : In newer devices, like the N82 and the N81, there is no longer a pencil button, but you can do the same just by pressing the # key over the item you wish to choose )

You’ll see that the item you choose, got marked. You can hold down the pencil key (or the # key in newer devices) and scroll down or upwards to mark or unmark items :

While doing so, if you wish to unmark an item, simply highlight it and while holding the pencil button (The # key in newer devices), press the center button on your device :

Thats all there is to it ! And this method saves you, majorly, on the number of keypresses.

Like I said earlier, you can use this feature in a number of places and not just in your messaging application.

You can use it in the Gallery Application :

Or you could use it in the in-device Symbian File explorer application to select and delete/copy/cut certain files :

You can basically use this feature in any application that supports it ! Useful feature, yes ?

-Teh Cj

Follow us on Facebook:

Author Description

Clinton Jeff

Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile things. Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus or on Facebook or Twitter: Follow @clintonjeff

CONTACT THE AUTHOR: