How to Delete or Archive Emails on iPhone and iPad

When you are done reading a message inside the Mail app of your iPhone (or iPad or iPod Touch), you would swipe and move that message out of your Gmail Inbox.

This swipe action will show an Archive button that you can tap to quickly move that email message from the Inbox to the All Mails folder. This is the default setting in iOS.

delete or archive email

Choose Between Delete and Archive

If you are more in favor of deleting emails that you have read and not archiving them, you can change the default setting of the Mail app such that it gives you the Delete option on swipe and not Archive.

How? On your iOS device, open Settings, tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars and then tap the email account that you wish to change. There you’ll see an option that says Archive Messages. Turn it off and now you can send your messages from the Inbox straight to the Trash folder.

The above is relevant to Gmail and Google Apps accounts. If you have configured Yahoo! Mail on your iPhone, swipe provide the Delete option and there’s no way to change that.

Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory

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Digital Inspiration has won several awards since it's launch in 2004.

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Google Developer Expert

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ProductHunt Golden Kitty

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Microsoft MVP Alumni

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Google Cloud Champion

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