Are you trying to swipe to delete mail on your iPhone’s or iPad’s Mail App, but only see the options to Archive, Flag, or More? Or wondering what the heck happened to the Delete Trashcan option? Are you only finding the Delete Trashcan in the Trash folder?
We get these common questions a lot, and basically, they boil down to “how do I delete emails on my iPhone, not archive??” So if you’re looking for a fast way to delete emails, so they go straight to Trash instead of Archive, we’ve got some tips for you.
Many of our readers tell us that after updating to a new iOS, they find their Mail App Settings return to defaults and are only able to locate the Delete Trashcan when actually in the Trash folder. Not good! And plenty confusing.
So let’s get to it!
Since iOS often sets quite a few settings back to default, we need to actually tell our iPad’s or iPhone’s Mail App to delete that email when we swipe left. So you guessed it, we need to visit the Settings App.
iOS 12+ and iPadOS call this setting Passwords & Accounts and in iOS 11, this as Accounts & Passwords, so if you’re having trouble locating your Email credentials and account information make sure you check out Settings > Passwords & Accounts (or Accounts & Passwords.)
Contents
How-To Change Swipe to Delete Mail Instead of Archive Mail iOS 11+ & iPadOS
As mentioned in iOS (11+) and iPadOS, it’s a little more complicated.
But you can update your Mail Account Settings to allow swipe to delete messages. We’re using a Gmail account as an example but you find similar settings for Outlook and others.
The trick is to find the heading “Move Discarded Messages Into” and update that to Deleted Mailbox.
Change Your Swipe iOS 11+ and iPadOS
- Go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts (or Accounts & Passwords)
- Select your Gmail Account (or another email account)
- Tap the Account Name
- Choose Advanced (also called Advanced Settings)
- Tap Deleted Mailbox under Move Discarded Messages Into
- A checkmark appears next to Deleted Mailbox
- Verify that under Mailbox Behaviors your Deleted Mailbox is pointing to the Trash
- If not, tap it and change to Trash
- Not all email accounts offer this setting
- Press the Back Arrow to return to your account
- Tap Done
- You may need to restart your iDevice for changes to take effect
Perform these same steps for all your Mail App connected email accounts. 
Once you update all accounts, confirm that swiping now shows the Trash to delete individual emails instead of Archive.
Steps for iOS 10 Mail Swipe to Delete
- Go to Settings > Mail
- Tap Accounts to display all your connected email accounts
- Select your email account
- Tap Advanced
- Find Move Discarded Messages Into
- Select Deleted Mailbox instead of Archive
- Deleted Mailbox should now have a checkmark
- Press the Back button to return to Account Details
- Tap Done
- You may need to restart your iDevice for changes to take effect
Perform these same steps for all your Mail App connected email accounts.
Want to Keep Swipe to Archive? 
If you want to keep swipe to Archive Mail, it’s still fairly simple to delete your email. It just takes a couple of extra steps. When swiping on an email choose More instead of Archive. Then tap Move Message and then select your Trash to delete that email.
For most of her professional life, Amanda Elizabeth (Liz for short) trained all sorts of folks on how to use media as a tool to tell their own unique stories. She knows a thing or two about teaching others and creating how-to guides!
Her clients include Edutopia, Scribe Video Center, Third Path Institute, Bracket, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Big Picture Alliance.
Elizabeth received her Master of Fine Arts degree in media making from Temple University, where she also taught undergrads as an adjunct faculty member in their department of Film and Media Arts.
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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