Configure your Gmail inbox to turn off the archiving function in favor of deleting messages.
Little known to users, Gmail’s Archive feature can quickly drive you crazy when you don’t know exactly how it works.
Concretely, it allows you to sort your inbox, eliminating processed messages, without deleting them. You can check it very easily from Gmail’s online interface: open a message and click on the Archive button. The message disappears. To find it, you have to deploy the More menu to access All messages.
This section, as its name suggests, groups together all the messages in your Gmail inbox: received emails, sent emails, drafts, etc.
The archiving function therefore allows you to restore your inbox to its primary function, namely, to receive and store new messages while waiting for you to open your inbox. We can very easily transpose the situation with the mailbox at your home that you open when you get home in the evening: once you have taken all your mail, the box is empty.
Those who do not use this function, or who do not understand how it works, then find themselves quite embarrassed when they want to delete an email from their inbox from a smartphone, when only the Archive option is offered.
If you’re using swipe to process your emails, here’s how to find the Delete button, whether you’re using the Gmail app on iOS and Android, or your Gmail account is set up in iPhone’s Mail client.
Change the swipe action in the Gmail app on Android
Open Gmail, tap the “hamburger” menu at the top left and enter Settings. Then press General settings and enter the menu Actions associated with the scan.
Tap each of the actions, Swipe (right), then Swipe (left) to display the customization options and select Remove, for either or both, depending on your needs.
Change the swipe action in the Gmail app on iPhone
Launch the Gmail app, open the hamburger menu, and enter Settings. Select your Google account then, in the General section, enter the Actions menu for processed messages. Then choose Move to Trash.
Change the swipe action in the Mail app on iPhone and iPad
If you have configured one or more mailboxes in the native iOS Mail client, you can easily change the default scanning action.
1. Go to account settings
Go to iOS Settings, scroll through the options, and navigate to Passwords & Accounts.
Enter the settings of the Gmail account to modify and tap on your account. Then enter the Advanced menu.
2. Change preferences
Locate the section called Place deleted messages in. Choose what you want to do when you delete a message: place them in Deleted Messages (Trash folder on Gmail), or in Archives (All messages folder on Gmail).
Open your Gmail box in Mail and swipe a message to the left. The delete button should finally appear.