MAIL problem: HOW CAN I PERMANENTLY DELETE EMAIL MESSAGES? Deleted mail keeps reappearing

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Level 1

16 points

MAIL problem: HOW CAN I PERMANENTLY DELETE EMAIL MESSAGES? Deleted mail keeps reappearing

I send & receive emails from 3 different sources: Google, iCloud (rarely) and my wireless ISP.

Ever since my son uploaded all my PC mail folders (around 40) & set up my iMac MAIL Version 7.2 (1874) last year, I've had all kinds of problems.

The MAIN problem is that no matter how I try to permanently delete my emails, they nearly always reappear! I've tried Mailbox-Erase Deleted Items and then selected the various sources (Google, etc.). I've tried just going to my trash & right-clicking "Erase Deleted Items". I've tried other solutions - and nearly always, the trash will appear empty after a minute or so. But then later, all those "permanently deleted" emails that were in the trash that I emptied show up again in my inbox!

I now have over 4,200 emails in my inbox!

I like having my email folders since I multi-task so much for work, family and college. So I don't want to give up my folders, even though their names came out all wrong after my son uploaded everything from my PC mail program (Outlook) to my iMac's MAIL program a year ago.

HOW CAN I PERMANENTLY DELETE EMAIL MESSAGES? I don't want Mail to automatically delete unread messages since I get at least 40 emails each day & need to read them all first before deleting.

Any advice would be IMMENSELY appreciated!

OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Posted on Apr 28, 2014 8:39 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

justzach16

Level 1

9 points

Apr 28, 2014 9:45 PM in response to sunstretch

It looks like you're storing all of your messages on your computer rather than on the email server. Which means that when you connect, it copies all of the emails to your computer and mirrors them to the server; so when you delete them off of your computer and then reconnect it just downloads them again.

My guess is that you're connecting via POP3 rather than IMAP. POP3 requires the emails to be downloaded to the computer in order to be viewed and cannot directly edit what is on the server itself, wheras connecting via IMAP stores exclusively to the server and mirrors the folder configuration.

If that's the problem you would likely need to manually configure your email accounts again and using IMAP, provided your email host has IMAP capability. If it does you should be able to find the server settings and perhaps even instructions on configuring with IMAP. Check your email in a browser and find the server settings. You may have to hunt around a bit or contact your email client's support.

Hope this helps! :-)

If this doesn't work, repost and we'll see if we can't find a different solution.

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Answer 2

tbirdvet

Level 6

13,623 points

Apr 29, 2014 4:04 AM in response to sunstretch

Go to mail, preferences, accounts and be sure the box is checked that states "remove from server after downloading". See if that helps. I also have POP3 and have no issues.

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Answer 3

Apr 29, 2014 2:05 PM in response to sunstretch

I had the same problem. Solved it by going to Mail, Preferences, Accounts, Mailbox Behaviors. Deselect 'Store junk messages on server' in Junk and Trash. Also select 'Delete junk messages' and 'Erase deleted messages' when quitting mail.

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Answer 4

Dec 2, 2016 8:42 PM in response to sunstretch

It took awhile to discover that the erase feature is built into Mail.

In Mail select Mailbox on the menu bar. Select Erase Deleted Items from the drop down menu.

Erase Junk Mail can be used to clear the Junk folder.

Easy when you know how. I just got the know how!

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Answer 5

Apr 7, 2017 10:13 AM in response to sunstretch

Simple: link into Gmail inbox main server, mark email you want to delete; when deleted, selected emails will be remove from your inbox, but there is no way back to retrieve

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