Deleting Gmail emails on your phone does NOT work

[KingCrimson]

Google isn't playing nice again with others? Huge shocker!

 

[xtrcentral]

On my iphone 4 the delete function worked as it should.
I hope they fix it soon.

No flaming...
I like windows phone OS! That's why i sold my iphone 4
I got bored with all these icons icons icons everywhere...

 

[jeffmlu]

Did anyone ever figure this out? I'm having the exact same problem as MikeEggleston.

clemon79 mentioned that when he deletes something, it goes to the "Deleted Items" folder on the GMail web UI (i.e. it has the Deleted Items label applied to it). Mine used to do that, but it no longer does. That was at least tolerable.

I posed this question on answers.microsoft.com as well: Unwanted Email Deletion Behavior with GMail Account - Microsoft Answers

 

[Jake_M]

webOS let me delete emails...

 

[TaliZorah]

Sometimes it can take like an hour for me but usually when I delete an email on my phone (gmail and yahoo) it will eventually get removed from their email server like when I check on my PC.

 

[jeffmlu]

Sometimes it can take like an hour for me but usually when I delete an email on my phone (gmail and yahoo) it will eventually get removed from their email server like when I check on my PC.

What do you mean "it will eventually get removed?" Does that mean it is removed from your inbox only, but goes into Trash? Or is it archived? Or removed completely from everything (not in trash, not archived... just gone)?

I'd prefer to not have it removed from everything. I like having 30 days of trash in case something gets accidentally deleted.

 

[enahs555]

Or you know, you guys could just use gmail properly. Go to your gmail settings, and go into the pop/imap settings.

There, they have these three options when you delete email from outside the web client:

Archive the message (default)
Move the message to the Trash
Immediately delete the message forever

So, if you do not want it to archive, tell gmail to stop archiving and either delete forever or Trash it.
Not really sure why people are blaming the phone for a gmail setting....

 

[TaliZorah]

What do you mean "it will eventually get removed?" Does that mean it is removed from your inbox only, but goes into Trash? Or is it archived? Or removed completely from everything (not in trash, not archived... just gone)?

I'd prefer to not have it removed from everything. I like having 30 days of trash in case something gets accidentally deleted.

To be honest, I never really checked because I never delete anything unless I want it gone forever. I just deleted some emails about an hour ago let me go check....

....


Looks like it deleted them for good.

 

[jeffmlu]

Or you know, you guys could just use gmail properly. Go to your gmail settings, and go into the pop/imap settings.

There, they have these three options when you delete email from outside the web client:

Archive the message (default)
Move the message to the Trash
Immediately delete the message forever

So, if you do not want it to archive, tell gmail to stop archiving and either delete forever or Trash it.
Not really sure why people are blaming the phone for a gmail setting....

Thanks for your smartass help, genius. If you read the post I linked to on answers.microsoft.com, I already tried that and it has no effect. You're so smart though. Way smarter than me. Thanks for your help smart guy.

 

[enahs555]

Thanks for your smartass help, genius. If you read the post I linked to on answers.microsoft.com, I already tried that and it has no effect. You're so smart though. Way smarter than me. Thanks for your help smart guy.

Nope. It works just fine.

When you turn that feature to what you desire, when you delete your email on your phone it moves it to the deleted folder on your phone. When you clear the deleted folder on your phone and sync the changes, it either deletes it from gmail or moves to trash depending on what you have it set for.
Not my fault, or your phones, you can not use it and gmail correct.

But good job on the childish name calling.

 

[jeffmlu]

When you turn that feature to what you desire, when you delete your email on your phone it moves it to the deleted folder on your phone. When you clear the deleted folder on your phone and sync the changes, it either deletes it from gmail or moves to trash depending on what you have it set for.

a) It's not behaving that way for me. This is a fact. I'm sorry that you're unwilling to accept this fact. I'm also sorry that you're unable to cope with not having the answer.
b) Even if it did behave that way, that's not what I would consider acceptable behavior, so I'm looking for a better alternative.
c) At no point did I accuse the phone or GMail specifically for the issue.

Neither your responses nor your tone are very helpful. If you'd like any more information from me so that you can better assist me and the other people reading this thread, feel free to ask politely.

 

[Jake_M]

It really doesn't delete from Gmail at all. I don't know how you all are procuring these results.

 

[thed]

Nope. It works just fine.

When you turn that feature to what you desire, when you delete your email on your phone it moves it to the deleted folder on your phone. When you clear the deleted folder on your phone and sync the changes, it either deletes it from gmail or moves to trash depending on what you have it set for.

Yeah, this doesn't work for me either. The funny thing is, this used to work. A while back, I found this setting and changed it to Move the message to Trash. And for a while, it worked perfectly. But more recently, something changed and now no matter what I have selected, it just takes the inbox label off and doesn't delete the message.

So it used to work and now it doesn't anymore. I don't know who is to blame for this.

 

[enahs555]

If you have that setting on gmail turned on, once you delete them on your phone, and then go to the deleted folders on you phone. Hit the ellipses and click empty folder. You then have to manually click the sync button for it to then update the changes on the server. This is how IMAP is supposed to work (other then having to manually hit sycn).


Alternatively, if you want it to work like before Mango, delete the account from phone and do an advanced setup, and set it up for pop and not imap, which is how it was before I believe.

 

[Jake_M]

Archiving and deleting on Apple devices - Gmail Help

That place is outdated... No info for iOS 5, WP7, etc. webOS deletes emails I know, so I know it's possible.

 

[cgk]

Any progress on this? It's bugging me as well.

 

[Major]

When I was using Android, the email client K-9 had the optional setting to delete emails on the server when I deleted them on the phone. It worked for my regular email, my Gmail, and my Hotmail. It did NOT require me to go to my corresponding email's settings within my desktop browser and reconfigure.

Most posters are not asking for a pain-in-the-*** workaround. We want simple functionality that other platforms offer.

 

[ptyork]

Okay, since I had to solve this (kind of) in the iOS world, I'll pass on my knowledge.

First, know that there are three different protocols that you can use to access Gmail: POP, IMAP, and EAS (Exchange Active Sync). POP is largely irrelevant as it doesn't keep the mail on the server synced with that on the client. So we have IMAP vs. EAS.

Google, in their infinite lack of wisdom, have decided that EAS should behave in a way completely inconsistent both with logic and with IMAP. Deletion of a message using EAS archives it. This is the method that WP7.5 is obviously now using by default when you set up a Google mail account. EAS cannot be configured at all. The "smartass" comments were just that since they only related to IMAP.

IMAP can be configured to delete messages rather than archive them. In fact, this is the default behavior (thus the inconsistency). Assuming you have the advanced IMAP controls "Labs" add-on installed, if auto-expunge is on, then the server will interpret a delete flag properly and move it to the trash. If auto-expunge is off, then your client has to issue the expunge command on a folder (telling the server to process all delete flags), and in this case you have more control of what happens when the expunge happens (archive, trash, or delete).

The problem is that WP7.5 appears not to delete anything. Rather, it just moves the message from whatever folder to a "Deleted Items" folder (which has absolutely no meaning to Gmail whatsoever). Other email clients let you specify a trash folder, but not Outlook Mobile. So, none of the IMAP settings have any bearing here, either.

So, a) Google is at fault for being stupid with their EAS implementation (minimally the user should have the choice as to whether it trashes, deletes or archives as they do with IMAP). b) Microsoft is at fault for creating a sub-par IMAP implementation with NEITHER the ability either to mark messages for deletion or to specify the name of the Deleted Items folder. It also doesn't support IMAP IDLE, so message retrieval is delayed by a minimum of 15 minutes.

Both companies share blame in this, though from opposite ends. IMO, Google is the most to blame, though, for their poor EAS implementation.

Hope this helps clarify.

 

[impliciter]

I think I may have found a solution to this problem. I was setting up multiple google calendars on my phone using (Mango Tip: Sync Multiple Google Calendars with Windows Phone).

I noticed the "Enable "Delete Email As Trash" for this device." option, selected it, and synced the account on my phone. Now deleted emails go to the trash label in gmail.

 

[MichaelBanning]

THEY'VE FIXED IT!!!! Go to the link below for instructions on how to access google sync from your phone, which is now regularly accessible on Windows Phone (without using impliciter's strategy in the above post). One of the first settings for your device is the Delete email as trash setting, which I've been trying.....

....AND IT WORKS!!!!! FINALLY!!! I CAN DELETE THE 20 SPAM EMAILS FROM STAPLES I GET EVERY MORNING INSTEAD OF ARCHIVING THEM!!!! ALL HAIL OUR BENEVOLENT GOOGLE OVERLORDS!!!!!!!!!

http://www.windowscentral.com/google-now-allowing-multiple-calendars-syn-windows-phone