IPhone – How to stop an iPhone from automatically deleting trashed emails over a week old

emailiphonesettingstrash

Not for the first time, I'm adding an IMAP account to my iphone with over a year's worth of email in the Trash folder and my iPhone has deleted them all as the default setting is to purge emails over a week old. I am currently in the process of restoring them from backups.

Strangely, I can't find anyone else complaining about this but it's not OK with me. Is there a way to stop this happening?

Best Answer

To change the setting, go to Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars → iCloud → Mail (under Advanced) → Advanced → Remove (under Deleted Messages) and set the time period after which deleted messages are removed.

You should not expect anything deleted to persist at all. You have instructed for it to be deleted and this is what you should expect.