It’s possible to swipe and delete within multiple apps on your iPhone or iPad. You can use the feature to remove your Mail inbox, along with Messages, Notes, and more. Since the early days of iOS and iPadOS, Apple has added more functionalities to the swipe to delete feature. This has made it easier to perform more tasks, but what happens when swipe to delete doesn’t work?
One of the most common questions we get relates to how users can delete content on their iPhone or iPad via the swipe method — and not just archive them. Fortunately, it’s quite easy to make your messages and the like to not end up in your Archive folder instead of the Trash. Today, we’ll show you what to do.
Mail App: How to Swipe to Delete Mail Instead of Archiving
It can feel quite complicated to enable the swipe to delete feature. While you can change the swiping feature’s action (e.g. archiving and marking as read), it’s not possible to make one of these an option for swiping and deleting.
Fortunately, you can still use swipe to delete in the Mail app — even if it’s not immediately available. Here’s how.
Open the Mail app. When you’re there, swipe left on the message you want to delete.
Hit More when the list of options appears.
When you see the dropdown menu, select Delete Message. You should then be able to find your message in the Trash folder.
Is There a Simple Checkbox to Delete Emails in the Mail App?
Some users have complained that swiping to delete has become more difficult when using Mail and other apps. With that in mind, they’re looking for user-friendly alternatives. The good news is that you can use a simple checkbox if you’d prefer, and the following steps will work for both the Mail and Messages apps.
In your chosen app, click on the Edit option when you see it.
A checklist will appear next to each message in your folder. Tick the boxes next to each correspondence that you want to remove.
Select Move and choose the Trash folder in Mail. In Messages, you can simply tap Delete.
I Accidentally Deleted an Important Message or Email: What Can I Do?
So, you’ve finally managed to delete the messages and emails in your inbox. But what happens if you find out that you accidentally deleted something that was actually essential?
Fortunately, it’s possible to retrieve your content.
In the Mail App
Go to the Trash folder.
Select the email you want to retrieve by going to Edit and checking the box next to it.
Select Move and choose Inbox.
In Messages
Select Edit.
Go to Show Recently Deleted.
Select your conversation and tap Recover.
Note that you can only retrieve messages that were deleted in the last 30 days. If your content was deleted longer ago than this, you unfortunately have to perform a couple of trickier tasks. Please refer to this guide for more information:
If swipe to delete isn’t working in Messages, Notes, and so on, the problem usually isn’t hard to fix. Try these tips:
Close and re-open the app.
Clean your screen. Sometimes, you might not be able to perform functions if your touchscreen is dirty.
Restart your device. If that doesn’t work, try force restarting.
Lock your screen and unlock it again. Weirdly, this can help with some glitches that you may encounter.
If your device is plugged in, remove it from the charger. Some chargers can cause iPhone and iPad screens to not respond as they typically would.
Use These Tips to Use the Swipe to Delete Feature in Mail and Other iOS/iPadOS Apps
Swiping is an easy way to delete messages and emails, but it might be difficult for some users if they haven’t previously done it. Unlike before, it’s not very easy to see where the swipe to delete option is in the Mail app. And in some cases, you may find that it’s too much of a hassle in general — meaning that you could potentially look for alternative solutions.
Hopefully, these tips will have helped you use the swipe to delete tool more effectively. If anything worked for you that we haven’t mentioned, feel free to let us know in the comments section.
Danny has been a professional writer since graduating from university in 2016, but he’s been writing online for over a decade. He has been intrigued by Apple products ever since getting an iPod Shuffle in 2008 and particularly enjoys writing about iPhones and iPads. Danny prides himself on making complex topics easy to understand. In his spare time, he’s a keen photographer.
On wy wife’s new iPhone with IOS13, I tried your suggestion to make it possible to delete a mail message by a left swipe. But immediately *All* e-mails in her Inbox disappeared! Yes, when a new (test) message from my phone arrived in her inbox, she could delete it with a left swipe. But why changing that setting moved all existing messages? And where did they go?
1. Help! The problem is with the horizontal scrolling in the apple email program. It is easy to accidentally delete contacts, emails, messages, etc. Is there a simple checkbox for horizontal scrolling. Or is there a way to eliminate the choses that appear on each side on a message i.e. unread, delete?
2. if a draft is deleted is there a way to find it? – it was not in the trashcan.
I couldn’t figure out how to get left swipe to show the trash option when I added gmail to my new iPhone SE (as it did for my work email). Your fix in settings was fantastic and worked immediately… I would never have stumbled upon this in settings without your advice… you saved me from a lot of frustration and extra touches to do it via the “more” option… thanks…
So this worked as described! However—in email settings there still is no longer an option to change “Swipe Options” to ONLY delete… as opposed to swiping and giving a couple options. This makes deleting messages take an extra swipe or click… this sounds trivial, but it does bother me (especially since previously they option was available and it was so easy to delete individual messages at a quick pace!)
Any methods to get this function back?
– also, side concern: I wanted to change my “archived mail location” but it always defaults to “All Mail” as opposed to STAYING On whatever option I select, after I press “Done.”
– why is this happening…. haha, thanks so much !
Unfortunately, I tried your method for swiping to delete but it won’t let me choose trash for the archived mailbox—only the All Mail category is not greyed out.
Can you tap Deleted Mailbox so it’s check-marked under the heading Move Discarded Messages Into?
If you can’t change these settings, we suggest you reconfigure the account by deleting it and adding it back in.
Since email is stored on your email provider’s servers, you should not lose any email.
To delete, go to Settings > Passwords & Account and choose the account that’s not letting you make changes
Tap Delete Account
Restart your device and then return to Settings > Passwords & Accounts and choose Add Account. Select the type (Google/Gmail, Yahoo, Aol, etc.) and follow the on-screen steps to add it in again
My iPhone 7+ all of a sudden will not let me open my mail app, it just blinks out. I have tried the methods listed above and none work. This has been going on for 3-4 days and I have shut it down like 7-8 times a day to no avail. WHAT’S NEXT to try
Close all your open apps and then restart your device. See if you can open Mail after that.
Close an app
1. On an iPhone or an iPad with no home button from the Home screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause slightly in the middle of the screen
2. On an iDevice with a home button, double-click the Home button and swipe right or left to find the app that you want to close
3. Swipe right or left to locate the app you want to close
4. Swipe up on the app’s preview to close it
5. Repeat for all open apps
If not, remove your email account from Settings > Passwords & Accounts and then add them back in.
I’ve followed your instructions step by step and to the letter at least three times. Including the restart. When I swipe an email, left or right, it goes to archive.
I checked the settings and it points to trash.
I would send you screen prints, but there’s no way to do that.
How do I get it to work correctly? Thank you.
Other than that, your instructions were very easy to follow.
Jeffery, after your deleted mailbox in “mailbox behaviors” points to trash it is important that in the next section “move discarded messages into” make sure “deleted mailbox” is checked instead of “archive mailbox”.
Then tap “account” to go back to the prior page and tap “done”.
Then reboot your iPhone or iPad which should hold your changes. This worked for me.
Thanks, Elizabeth!
I knew it had to be a setting I was missing since the email accounts on my iPhone would do it but not the iPad.
Better to have gmail swipe option as on Android. You can swipe left to delete, right to archive. I wonder why this isn’t available on iPad – or am i missing something?
1. Open Settings
2. Open Passwords & Accounts
3. Tap the name of the email that’s going to archive
4. Tap the name of the account that’s next to Account
5. Tap Advanced
6. Change Move Discarded Messages Into by tapping Deleted Mailbox instead of Archive Mailbox
7. Take a look an make sure that deleted Mailbox is checked
8. Tap the back Account button at the top-left
9. Tap Done in the upper right to save changes
10.Tap back to get to the Settings App again
Now, restart your iPhone and see if it works as expected.
If you use the O365 client instead of the generic apple email, please note that in the O365 email inbox, click on the very top left circle to the left of the word Inbox, it will open a side panel on the left.
At the very bottom of the side panel is a gear icon underneath a question mark, press that gear to get into settings.
Look for the Swipe Options and choose that then under swipe right choose Mark Read/Unread and under Swipe left choose Delete.
Wendysays
Beyond frustrated with this… i use gmail as my main mail account and i can only archive, not delete. in the advanced option of passwords and accounts, i cannot select “trash” because it is greyed out. moreover the swipe options in my “mail” app are flag, mark as read, move, archive… there is no delete. i have an iphone 7 running an up2date IOS. no idea why everyone else can make this work but i can’t. please help. thanks.
Sorry that this process isn’t working for you. Add on the step of closing your Mail App before you make the setting change. Close an app by double pressing Home or swiping up on the Home Gesture Bar and then swiping off the top of the screen the app preview for Mail.
Tried this. Didn’t work. Or I didn’t understand the directions.
Could you break it down for me? At 66 I’m not quite as savvy as most.
What would happen if I deleted the app, followed the steps described in your article and re-do the app? My initial thought is it wouldn’t work because Gmail would no longer be in my Accounts.
Thx sooooo much guys for the how-to to enable swipe to delete again!!! I was getting crazy about that I always have to mark the mails, push on move and then set it to trash…..
Thanks, i Couldnt find the Advanced section for days until I found this post. The key was to click on your email address after selecting Gmail! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Thank! I googled this for 15 mins and this was the first site that gave me the actual answer! Have been wondering how to do this for so long! Drove me crazy!
Sorry that it’s not working for you. What type of account settings are you adjusting–i.e. a yahoo, gmail, outlook, etc?
Also, make sure after selecting your options for Mailbox Behaviors and Move Discarded Messages Into that you are pressing Done–that saves your options. Then restart your device and see if those settings take.
If you’ve done all those steps already and it still isn’t working, please let us know what type of account you’re trying to modify and we’ll take a look.
I am having same experience as Tony — I have followed the instructions precisely, and I have been sure to include “Done” instruction, and the change is not being implemented. I am using standard Gmail account. Every swipe — right or left — archives the message. I want to swipe and delete. What now?
When you go back and check the Advanced settings for that Gmail account in Passwords & Accounts, is it defaulting (check-marked) back to Archive under Move Discarded messages into?
First, let’s close and reopen the Mail app. After closing the app, relaunch it and see if swipe to delete now works.
Close an app
1. On an iPhone or an iPad with no home button from the Home screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause slightly in the middle of the screen
2. On an iDevice with a home button, double-click the Home button and swipe right or left to find the app that you want to close
3. Swipe right or left to locate the app you want to close
4. Swipe up on the app’s preview to close it
Let’s try to change it again, but close all apps on your device and restart.
If that didn’t work
1) Close all open and suspended apps so no apps are open/suspended on your device (in particular, close the Mail app)
2) Restart your device by powering off, waiting 20 seconds, and powering back on
3) Open Settings > Passwords & Accounts and make that change again
4) Only after making the change, launch your Mail app and see if the swipe now works
Thanks very much. Most of the links that supposedly showed how to do this were incorrect. Yours was the only one I saw that actually did it right. You da Man (or woman).
Please let us know what type of email account you’re using. Usually getting to the Advanced (or Advanced Settings) option takes a few taps–first Account & Passwords, then tap the specific account, then tap your specific account name (usually your email address) again. Then underneath the Account Information, you should see the Advanced Menu.
On wy wife’s new iPhone with IOS13, I tried your suggestion to make it possible to delete a mail message by a left swipe. But immediately *All* e-mails in her Inbox disappeared! Yes, when a new (test) message from my phone arrived in her inbox, she could delete it with a left swipe. But why changing that setting moved all existing messages? And where did they go?
1. Help! The problem is with the horizontal scrolling in the apple email program. It is easy to accidentally delete contacts, emails, messages, etc. Is there a simple checkbox for horizontal scrolling. Or is there a way to eliminate the choses that appear on each side on a message i.e. unread, delete?
2. if a draft is deleted is there a way to find it? – it was not in the trashcan.
Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for posting this really helped!
Thanks, been looking for this.
Perfect, Thanks!
Great , thanks for the tip it really worked for me on my iPhone SE.
thank you, worked like a champ.
I couldn’t figure out how to get left swipe to show the trash option when I added gmail to my new iPhone SE (as it did for my work email). Your fix in settings was fantastic and worked immediately… I would never have stumbled upon this in settings without your advice… you saved me from a lot of frustration and extra touches to do it via the “more” option… thanks…
Worked great! Thank you 🙂
These step by step instructions are great. Did exactly what it said and it worked! Thank you!
On my Iphone xr the gmail does not swipe either right to left or left to right.I have done what is indicated above
Hi Marcela,
Check that your Mail app has set swipe options.
Go to settings > Mail > swipe options, then choose an options for the left and the right.
Thank you so very very very very much❤️
Deb
Helped so much. Thanks!
Excellent solution to my problem. It’s great to be rid of that useless Archive option in IOS mail.
Thank you
I looked everywhere for this information. You rock. All other sites were outdated or just plain wrong for my situation
So this worked as described! However—in email settings there still is no longer an option to change “Swipe Options” to ONLY delete… as opposed to swiping and giving a couple options. This makes deleting messages take an extra swipe or click… this sounds trivial, but it does bother me (especially since previously they option was available and it was so easy to delete individual messages at a quick pace!)
Any methods to get this function back?
– also, side concern: I wanted to change my “archived mail location” but it always defaults to “All Mail” as opposed to STAYING On whatever option I select, after I press “Done.”
– why is this happening…. haha, thanks so much !
Thank you so much for this!
Unfortunately, I tried your method for swiping to delete but it won’t let me choose trash for the archived mailbox—only the All Mail category is not greyed out.
Any idea why this is?? Thank you 🙂
Hi Anisa,
Can you tap Deleted Mailbox so it’s check-marked under the heading Move Discarded Messages Into?
If you can’t change these settings, we suggest you reconfigure the account by deleting it and adding it back in.
Since email is stored on your email provider’s servers, you should not lose any email.
To delete, go to Settings > Passwords & Account and choose the account that’s not letting you make changes
Tap Delete Account
Restart your device and then return to Settings > Passwords & Accounts and choose Add Account. Select the type (Google/Gmail, Yahoo, Aol, etc.) and follow the on-screen steps to add it in again
Thanks – fixed an annoying setting back to a better function!
My iPhone 7+ all of a sudden will not let me open my mail app, it just blinks out. I have tried the methods listed above and none work. This has been going on for 3-4 days and I have shut it down like 7-8 times a day to no avail. WHAT’S NEXT to try
Hi Nancy,
Close all your open apps and then restart your device. See if you can open Mail after that.
Close an app
1. On an iPhone or an iPad with no home button from the Home screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause slightly in the middle of the screen
2. On an iDevice with a home button, double-click the Home button and swipe right or left to find the app that you want to close
3. Swipe right or left to locate the app you want to close
4. Swipe up on the app’s preview to close it
5. Repeat for all open apps
If not, remove your email account from Settings > Passwords & Accounts and then add them back in.
Suddenly stopped working. Setting has changed, but now emails are archived when swiped. (Yet another iOS “enhancement”). This is my last iPhone.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Thank you very much!!!!! Loved it!
What if you don’t have “advanced” as an option?
THis was REALLY helpful. Thank you!!
Thank you!
I have a 6S+ iOS 12.0
I’ve followed your instructions step by step and to the letter at least three times. Including the restart. When I swipe an email, left or right, it goes to archive.
I checked the settings and it points to trash.
I would send you screen prints, but there’s no way to do that.
How do I get it to work correctly? Thank you.
Other than that, your instructions were very easy to follow.
Jeffery, after your deleted mailbox in “mailbox behaviors” points to trash it is important that in the next section “move discarded messages into” make sure “deleted mailbox” is checked instead of “archive mailbox”.
Then tap “account” to go back to the prior page and tap “done”.
Then reboot your iPhone or iPad which should hold your changes. This worked for me.
Thanks, Elizabeth!
I knew it had to be a setting I was missing since the email accounts on my iPhone would do it but not the iPad.
Better to have gmail swipe option as on Android. You can swipe left to delete, right to archive. I wonder why this isn’t available on iPad – or am i missing something?
Hi Gerry,
You aren’t missing anything. iOS currently only allows a swipe to the left to reveal options–swipe to the right doesn’t offer anything!
A great suggestion! Consider sending Apple your user feedback here.
My phone 6S+ iOS 12.0 sends email to archive swiping right or left. Go figure.
Hi Jeffrey,
Let;s try this:
1. Open Settings
2. Open Passwords & Accounts
3. Tap the name of the email that’s going to archive
4. Tap the name of the account that’s next to Account
5. Tap Advanced
6. Change Move Discarded Messages Into by tapping Deleted Mailbox instead of Archive Mailbox
7. Take a look an make sure that deleted Mailbox is checked
8. Tap the back Account button at the top-left
9. Tap Done in the upper right to save changes
10.Tap back to get to the Settings App again
Now, restart your iPhone and see if it works as expected.
Sam
If you use the O365 client instead of the generic apple email, please note that in the O365 email inbox, click on the very top left circle to the left of the word Inbox, it will open a side panel on the left.
At the very bottom of the side panel is a gear icon underneath a question mark, press that gear to get into settings.
Look for the Swipe Options and choose that then under swipe right choose Mark Read/Unread and under Swipe left choose Delete.
Beyond frustrated with this… i use gmail as my main mail account and i can only archive, not delete. in the advanced option of passwords and accounts, i cannot select “trash” because it is greyed out. moreover the swipe options in my “mail” app are flag, mark as read, move, archive… there is no delete. i have an iphone 7 running an up2date IOS. no idea why everyone else can make this work but i can’t. please help. thanks.
Excellent, thanks
This does not work. Still archiving my gmail. I pressed done and restarted.
Hi Chris,
Sorry that this process isn’t working for you. Add on the step of closing your Mail App before you make the setting change. Close an app by double pressing Home or swiping up on the Home Gesture Bar and then swiping off the top of the screen the app preview for Mail.
See if that works!
Sam
Tried this. Didn’t work. Or I didn’t understand the directions.
Could you break it down for me? At 66 I’m not quite as savvy as most.
What would happen if I deleted the app, followed the steps described in your article and re-do the app? My initial thought is it wouldn’t work because Gmail would no longer be in my Accounts.
Writing just to thank you a lot for this tip. Have a nice day.
I love this! Thank you so much for this – it has been driving me insane.
Thx sooooo much guys for the how-to to enable swipe to delete again!!! I was getting crazy about that I always have to mark the mails, push on move and then set it to trash…..
THX!!!!
Thanks, i Couldnt find the Advanced section for days until I found this post. The key was to click on your email address after selecting Gmail! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
You’re totally welcome Esther. Thanks for letting us know the tips helped get things sorted out and you’re able now to delete email at will!
Liz
Thank! I googled this for 15 mins and this was the first site that gave me the actual answer! Have been wondering how to do this for so long! Drove me crazy!
THANK you! It was driving me nuts.
Tried this several times and it didn’t work. When I swipe still have archive or schedule
Hi Tony,
Sorry that it’s not working for you. What type of account settings are you adjusting–i.e. a yahoo, gmail, outlook, etc?
Also, make sure after selecting your options for Mailbox Behaviors and Move Discarded Messages Into that you are pressing Done–that saves your options. Then restart your device and see if those settings take.
If you’ve done all those steps already and it still isn’t working, please let us know what type of account you’re trying to modify and we’ll take a look.
SK
I am having same experience as Tony — I have followed the instructions precisely, and I have been sure to include “Done” instruction, and the change is not being implemented. I am using standard Gmail account. Every swipe — right or left — archives the message. I want to swipe and delete. What now?
Hi Adam.
When you go back and check the Advanced settings for that Gmail account in Passwords & Accounts, is it defaulting (check-marked) back to Archive under Move Discarded messages into?
First, let’s close and reopen the Mail app. After closing the app, relaunch it and see if swipe to delete now works.
Close an app
1. On an iPhone or an iPad with no home button from the Home screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause slightly in the middle of the screen
2. On an iDevice with a home button, double-click the Home button and swipe right or left to find the app that you want to close
3. Swipe right or left to locate the app you want to close
4. Swipe up on the app’s preview to close it
Let’s try to change it again, but close all apps on your device and restart.
If that didn’t work
1) Close all open and suspended apps so no apps are open/suspended on your device (in particular, close the Mail app)
2) Restart your device by powering off, waiting 20 seconds, and powering back on
3) Open Settings > Passwords & Accounts and make that change again
4) Only after making the change, launch your Mail app and see if the swipe now works
Thank you soooooo much!!!! You saved my life
Thanks very much. Most of the links that supposedly showed how to do this were incorrect. Yours was the only one I saw that actually did it right. You da Man (or woman).
Michael,
Awesome! Thanks…from this woman 🙂
Liz
There is no ADVANCED option under Any mail accounts in accounts and passwords.
Hi Rob,
Please let us know what type of email account you’re using. Usually getting to the Advanced (or Advanced Settings) option takes a few taps–first Account & Passwords, then tap the specific account, then tap your specific account name (usually your email address) again. Then underneath the Account Information, you should see the Advanced Menu.
Liz
Thank you- this is the 6th site I visited to find a solution and the only one that had the correct fix.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing and letting us know.
Liz