My mail wont stay deleted

Have you checked the setting to delete the mail off the server when you delete from Mail? I'd suggest checking on your email using Safari to access your email account web interface. See if your emails are still on the server.

This seems to be the best place to post my experience and it seems to be solved. Short answer- move the emails to the Junk folder. Worked for me. Full story follows:

We have a shared comcast POP email account that my wife and I both use for "general" messages. By the end of February, I noticed that some emails I had deleted were showing up as new. In my case, it was those dated February 8th thru the 16th. I deleted each one on my iPhone, that didn't do it. Deleted each one on my MacBookPro Retina using Apple Mail - that didn't do it. They appeared to go away, but they came back the very next day. I did not go to my wife's phone or her MacBook to try to delete them. But we have been using this shared email for several years now without any issue.

And since it was only 15 messages from that one week period, I declined to use any of the "solutions" in this thread and elsewhere that deal with global fixes. Such as delete the account entirely from my phone and set it up all over again. That doesn't explain why the most recent emails are fine and it was only one week (really 8 days) that had a problem. I also went to the comcast web site and looked at my email there. As I remember, the deleted emails did not show up there, so it was something that Apple Mail and the iPhone Mail did to those messages.

I tried selecting them all together and doing a bulk deleted of those 15 messages. Still no luck. As a last straw, I tried moving them all to the Junk folder. That did it ⚠ Apparently, that is the strongest "get rid of this" indication you can apply to messages. I haven't seen them again in 3 or 4 days now, so I assume the fix did it for me. I hope this is helpful to anyone else with the same problem. Just annoying, but it keep saying I had new messages (with the little red circle and the number 15) when in fact that were the same old messages coming back like "the walking dead".

I spent over 6 hours deleting e-mails only to have them show up again. I should of given up after the second attempt! I tried a third time hoping they would stay gone. I think I am going to completely delete the whole mail program from my computer.

Have you tried highlighting the mail box on the left side, and on the menu bar click mailbox then rebuild? That will usually get rid of deleted messages that won't leave.

OK, this is a bit strange. I have never seen this behavior on any email program (Apple or MS). One last question so that I can see if I see the same behavior: How are you deleting the messages? Are you selecting the messages and "deleting" them, or are you using the menu to empty all deleted items and empty the junk mail folder?

I am having similar problem. And to say to switch to using Safari and not the Mail client isn't much help, since the point is to have access to email offline.

I wasn't suggesting switch to Safari to read the email, just to get to the account and check the settings there to see where the problem lies.

I, myself, hate accessing my email through the web sites. I only use it as a last resort.

But, I was just asking for some information to see if I could help.

Thanks seems to have worked I must remember that one. Company server uses Outlook, sometimes bypassing Mail and going to web based outlook allows me to clear persistent messages but this worked a treat.

jackielynne94 wrote:

I have tried all of the ways you listed. no luck

Please confirm that you have a Gmail account.

I am having the same problem.

I have a Macbook Pro..brand new. I am using GoDaddy for IMAP services (about 8 accounts).

I have seen that I will go through a bunch of emails in my "inbox" (the consolidated inbox for all my accounts). I will delete a bunch of emails. They disappear and stay gone for a while.

When I explore other mailboxes individually and then go back and click on the "inbox" for all accounts and there they all. All the messages I replied to, moved to other folders, and deleted. It's really bad!

I have rebuilt the overall inbox as well as all the other individual ones.

On a side note, spelling and grammar checking in Safair *****. It never works. Happens in Mac Mail too.

I have been a PC person for decades and am trying to move over to Mac. This stuf makes it very hard to do this. It is continual frustration and I am doing just the easy stuff. Outlook doesnt have any of these problems. Sure, it may run poorly on the Mac, but how much worse can it be from this? Look above, note that the spell check inside of Safari did not catch the spelling errors?

Please help!!!!

Please help us. It looks like you have been around for a while. We need help.

IF its your GMail within which your emails are not being deleted, you need to go to your GMail and alter your settings there. Its under:

- Gmail/Settings/Forwarding and POP/IMAP/When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted ... Check auto expunge off.

- And the very next option: When a message is marked as deleted and expunged ... Check immediately delete the message forever. Once you have deleted all your old trash, you could reset it back to 'Move the message to the Trash' so that if you accidently remove something it isnt lost forever.