I have a mail account with lot of e-mails stored on server (around 100 thousand). I would like to clean it using Mail app and delete all unnecessary messages. But so far no luck. Store deleted e-mails on server is UNCHECKED. Move deleted messages to Trash is UNCHECKED.

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Delete Mail App On Mac

Mail User Guide

Can't Delete Emails On Mac

You can delete email messages that you don’t need anymore to help keep your mailboxes manageable, and to free up storage space on your Mac or on the mail server. Deleted messages are available until they’re permanently erased.

Can I Delte Mail App On Mac

Delete an email

Can I Delete Mail App On Mac

  1. In the Mail app on your Mac, select a message.

  2. Click the Delete button in the Mail toolbar or move the pointer over the message’s header, then click the Delete button that appears.

    Tip: To prevent the next message in the list from being automatically selected (and marked as read), press and hold the Option key when you delete the message.

If you set the “Move discarded messages” option to Trash in Viewing preferences in Mail, you can delete a message by swiping left on the trackpad with two fingers or by moving the pointer over a Mail notification, then clicking Trash.

Delete multiple emails

  1. In the Mail app on your Mac, select messages or conversations in the list.

    All of the messages in a conversation will be deleted.

  2. Click the Delete button in the Mail toolbar or press the Delete key.

If you delete a mailbox, all of the messages in the mailbox are deleted.

You can search for a set of messages to delete. For example, you can search for messages dated August 1 through September 5, 2018 by entering “date:8/01/18-9/05/18” in the Mail search field. Or, search for messages from a specific person by entering a name in the search field. Then select and delete the found messages.

View deleted emails

Whether you can view and retrieve messages after you delete them depends on how you set options in Mail preferences.

  1. In the Mail app on your Mac, choose Mail > Preferences, then click Accounts.

  2. Select an account, click Mailbox Behaviors, then check the setting for the Trash Mailbox option.

    • If a mailbox is specified: You can view deleted messages in the Trash mailbox until they’re permanently erased. To retrieve a deleted message, drag it from the Trash mailbox to another mailbox.

    • If None is specified: Deleted messages are removed and aren’t available in the Trash mailbox.

Delete Mail From Mac

Permanently delete emails

How To Delete Mail App

In the Mail app on your Mac, do one of the following:

  • Choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items, then choose an account.

  • In the Mail sidebar, Control-click a Trash mailbox, then choose Erase Deleted Items.

How To Delete Mail Off Mac

You can set the “Erase deleted messages” option in Mail preferences to have Mail permanently erase deleted messages for you at a specified time. See Change Mailbox Behaviors preferences.

If you mistakenly delete messages, just drag them out of the Trash mailbox to another mailbox. Or select them in the Trash mailbox, then choose Message > Move to > [mailbox].

Delete Apple Mail App

See alsoArchive emails in Mail on MacRestore mailboxes and their content in Mail on MacKeep mailboxes from getting too big in Mail on MacAdd or remove email accounts in Mail on Mac