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iOS 7 How-to: Easily delete, not archive, your Gmail messages in Mail

Screen Shot 2013-09-23 at 9.54.50 AM

Setting up your email in iOS 7 is just like setting it up in earlier versions of iOS. Just like before, you are able to have Gmail set up in the Mail app. To set up your email you would go to Settings, then tap on Mail, Contacts & Calendars, and then press Add Account. By default in iOS, Gmail is set to archive your emails as opposed to deleting them. Archiving email keeps the messages in an Archived folder, but Deleting moves them to the trash.

If you are viewing your inbox, and you swipe from right to left on the message, you do not get the option to delete the message. Rather, you get an Archive option or a More option. The More option gives you every other option except for deleting the message. You could always tap on More, then press Move Message, and then choose the Trash folder. That’s rather tedious for a simple task:

Even when you try viewing the body of the message, you do not have a delete option, rather the button right above the home button, is a blue box. When you press that blue box it archives the message as oppose to deleting the message and putting it in Trash.

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Under your settings, you can change archiving to delete for Gmail. In iOS 6, this was a lot easier because all you had to do was tap on your account in Settings and turn the Archive Messages switch off.

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In iOS 7, to change it so that way the emails will delete, go into Settings, tap on Mail, Contacts & Calendars and tap on your Gmail account that is listed.

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Then tap on Account.

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Down at the bottom tap on Advanced. You are going to change where it says “Move Discarded Messages Into:” by tapping on the word Deleted Mailbox.

Now that I turned on Deleted Mailbox, whenever I go to delete a message I will now have that option to delete the message and put it in the trash.

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Comments

  1. Douglas Brace - 11 years ago

    my solution… use the “Gmail” app

  2. Thanks it’s helps a lot!

  3. Ryan - 11 years ago

    I just have to say, you know you can hold down on the archive box icon and get the option to delete, right? That’s been there at least since iOS 6…

    • Simon Paquet - 11 years ago

      Had no idea. I wish I could give you a dollar for saving me so much time.

      • Ryan - 11 years ago

        I wish you could too, that’d be awesome!

    • Martin Masson - 11 years ago

      Nice! I didn’t know that… Sir, you made my day… :)

      Thanks!

      • Ryan - 11 years ago

        Glad to hear :)

  4. If you press and hold the Archive button you get the choice to trash anyway, works on iOS6 and iOS7

  5. Kyle Guske - 11 years ago

    I don’t get the More option along with Archive, does anyone know why?

  6. Mike Gruszka - 11 years ago

    Thanks so much to Ryan and Richard’s comments here. The single icon to either Archive or Delete has been driving me crazy. So much that I have done occasional searches like this one as I assume someone else has figured it out. Press and hold – so simple, but I guess not intuitive enough for me!

    To the author: I would suggest updating your article. The commenter’s suggestion here is far more useful and flexible.

  7. greyjensen - 11 years ago

    Get rid of Gmail and all of Google’s bullshit and byzantine settings. Get a personal domain, and pay a few bucks a month for hosted email. It’s absolutely easy to do this, and you’ll be glad you did it. There are many good hosting services out there — I can recommend Westhost and Bluehost. At Westhost, for example, $4 / month gets you web hosting with plenty of bandwidth (if you have a website or blog) and 100 free email accounts. Both of these companies offer 24/7 by-phone tech support, if something goes wrong with your mail (and you’re talking to someone in the U.S., who speaks English). Stay away from GoDaddy.

  8. dman238 - 11 years ago

    Thanks for the tip! Was wondering how to do this…

  9. promise7 - 11 years ago

    Thank you for the tip! It was driving me crazy not being able to delete messages from the Inbox. Now if only there was a way for the stock iOS Mail app to sync with new Gmail messages quicker. Instead of “fetch”ing them at the quickest, which is still slow, 15 minutes. Until then, I’ll keep using the Gmail app.

  10. Juan duran (@Duran805) - 10 years ago

    This was exactly the solution I was looking for. Thank you.

  11. RCIV101 (@RCIV101) - 10 years ago

    very helpful!

  12. There is another poorly documented key. You may also need to change your Google sync settings by visiting https://m.google.com/sync/settings/iconfig/welcome from your ios device. There is a setting there called “Enable ‘Delete Email As Trash’ for this device”. If that is not checked then deleting or moving to the trash from the built in mail.app of iOS will still only archive your mail, despite what the button says.

    • Dave Neely - 10 years ago

      Nathaniel thank you!! This definitely should have been in the original post, you just saved me so much frustration!

  13. Varenka Rodriguez - 10 years ago

    thanks!!!!!!!

  14. Maria H. (@Maria_SFEB) - 10 years ago

    This was awesome information; thank you! It wasn’t at all the answer to my original question, but…this has been a nagging issue.

  15. guhan m - 10 years ago

    thanks very much

  16. Anthony Quattrochi - 10 years ago

    YES! Thank you so much.

  17. Walter Mundstock - 10 years ago

    Thank you so MUCH! I wasted a lot of time trying to figure this out. This was VERY helpful!

  18. This has been so frustrating. Thank you for solving the mystery! made my day!!!

  19. Ted Hopton (@TedHopton) - 10 years ago

    Thank you!

  20. kevindeisher - 10 years ago

    I have done all that and still have the stupid archive button

  21. Matt Brink (@mbrink12) - 10 years ago

    Doesn’t work for me. Cant figure out why. Followed your steps too.

  22. gumbygoogoo - 10 years ago

    Yes!! The exact issue I was hoping to solve – thanks!!

  23. Dominique LaCasse - 10 years ago

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
    It’s ridiculous that we have to do this to get a delete option instead of archive. The default should be delete — as all gmail ends up being archived anyway.

  24. Vladimir Orlov - 10 years ago

    Perfect, thanx!

  25. THANK YOU! Life saver

  26. Hans - 9 years ago

    Thank you sooooo much! It’s been 2 years of having to go in and “re”-delete 1000s of emails & Notes a second time… beyond annoying & neither Google or Apple had the simple solution as to how to fix this…. just reiteration of the symptoms, no solutions. Cheers

  27. Cynthia Peska Northup - 9 years ago

    thanks for this!

  28. Chhanda (@chhanda_b) - 9 years ago

    Thank you very much. It worked!!

  29. Katie Golding Mecham - 9 years ago

    Thank you!!!

  30. Brittney Christ - 9 years ago

    Thank you!!!! :)

  31. Fritz Van de Kamp - 9 years ago

    Thanks! You are my hero! I thought this wasn’t possible and I have been annoyed by it for at least a couple of years.

  32. Chakk Sriloy - 9 years ago

    thank you so mcuh ! ive been so lazy to find out about !

  33. Kimberlyn Way Velasquez - 9 years ago

    YEEEEESSSSS!!! Thank you!

  34. Trevor (@iTrevvy) - 8 years ago

    Now to just delete 4000 some emails and open space on my phone

  35. Lynn Cristina - 8 years ago

    THANK YOU!

  36. lelandmont - 7 years ago

    Still works in IOS 10.3, thank you so much for the hugely time-saving tip!