How to delete lots of emails in inbox - all at same time?

[BlogOnTheTyne]

There are now over 6000 emails in my inbox because I never find time to read and delete those that are 'possibly' interesting or put those I need to save into a separate folder. They just accumulate.

To delete each one would take hours and hours as it takes almost a minute for the 'delete' key to highlight another email after I've deleted the last one.

Is there a quicker way to highlight blocks of emails and delete the lot on the system I use - which is WindowsLive Mail? So far, it won't let me do this - eg highlight and then press delete.

[jkklpu]

Click on the one at the top, hold down the shift key, scroll down and click on the one at the bottom - they should all be highlighted and you can click delete. Then do the same to delete your deleted items.

[BlogOnTheTyne]

Sorry to sound stupid but is the shift key the one with the 'arrow pointing upwards' key just above the CTRL key on the bottom left of the keyboard?

If it is, then I've tried this and it won't let me highlight and just comes up with a circle with a line through it 'barring' the action.

What am I doing wrong?

[jkklpu]

Bizarre. Sorry, no idea - yes, it's that key and it works on my work system (MS Outlook) and on Thunderbird on my Mac at home.