Gmail Not Deleting Emails

[B. Diddy]

Yes I only use for Gmail now and use typeapp for non Gmail accounts.

Are you tapping the trash can icon or swiping the emails away? If you're swiping, the default is to Archive, not to Delete. Archiving would make the email disappear from the Primary Inbox, but it would still be available in All Mail.

 

[patruns]

I tap the trash can icon but they still come back. There is no setting option to delete from the server

 

[claudio.zergoni]

Hi, I restore this quite old thread hoping to be of some help.
I found many threads, with many people complaining for this issue, but never found one with a working solution...
My case is pretty much the same: I'm using android Gmail app with another external account, and I was not able to delete any mail of this account from Gmail app, because after a short while it came back again.
So I checked the folder structure of my external account, via web site, and I found that the Trash folder was not very well defined: more specifically I had a second folder named Trash in the folder tree, probably created automatically by some email client I used in the past. This was not a problem for other clients, but apparently this IS for Gmail app.
I deleted this second Trash folder, and suddenly I became able to delete the email from the Gmail app!
Or better saying the deleted emails now go to the proper Trash folder as they should.
I don't know if this solution could work for anyone, but as said I didn't find any useful on the numerous thread created over the years... it worked for me. Good luck!
Regards.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central, and thanks for your solution!

 

[JustinSneller]

I was having the same issue - I would delete them, and they would automatically show back up. I noticed this after I switched conversation view "OFF". I just fixed this by doing the following:

1. Settings
2. General Settings
3. Check/Uncheck Conversation View
4. Go back to Settings
5. Select your email address
6. Check/Uncheck Conversation View here as well

Your google account should reboot/restart and the emails that I wanted deleted off my phone disappeared.

 

[B. Diddy]

I was having the same issue - I would delete them, and they would automatically show back up. I noticed this after I switched conversation view "OFF". I just fixed this by doing the following:

1. Settings
2. General Settings
3. Check/Uncheck Conversation View
4. Go back to Settings
5. Select your email address
6. Check/Uncheck Conversation View here as well

Your google account should reboot/restart and the emails that I wanted deleted off my phone disappeared.

Welcome to Android Central, and thanks for the input!

 

[patruns]

"6. Check/Uncheck Conversation View here as well"

I do not have that last option.

 

[phil-1111]

Hi, I restore this quite old thread hoping to be of some help.
I found many threads, with many people complaining for this issue, but never found one with a working solution...
My case is pretty much the same: I'm using android Gmail app with another external account, and I was not able to delete any mail of this account from Gmail app, because after a short while it came back again.
So I checked the folder structure of my external account, via web site, and I found that the Trash folder was not very well defined: more specifically I had a second folder named Trash in the folder tree, probably created automatically by some email client I used in the past. This was not a problem for other clients, but apparently this IS for Gmail app.
I deleted this second Trash folder, and suddenly I became able to delete the email from the Gmail app!
Or better saying the deleted emails now go to the proper Trash folder as they should.
I don't know if this solution could work for anyone, but as said I didn't find any useful on the numerous thread created over the years... it worked for me. Good luck!
Regards.

Thanks. This worked for me. Using Gmail app on Android (Pixel 8a) with a generic IMAP email account, emails that I tried to delete (not archived, but properly deleted) were returning a few minutes later. It was specific to the Gmail app, as emails could be deleted without problem using Thunderbird on Windows. By logging in to webmail I saw that there was a second 'Deleted items' (or similarly named) folder within the mailbox. I renamed that to something completely different. After that, the Gmail app was able to delete IMAP emails permanently.