Mail: keyboard shortcut to move email to trash

mail.appmojaveshortcut

I'm on macOS Mojave, Mail is version 12.4.

Problem

I've just realized that cmd + delete is deleting (ie irretrievably removing from my machine and server) my emails instead of moving them to the trash. I want my emails to go to the trash so I can recover them later if needed. I would like to change the behavior of that keyboard shortcut, but I doubt that's possible on macOS so I'd settle for adding a new shortcut. However, I can't figure out how to do that.

What I've tried

I've tried changing the mailbox behavior, which is what others have suggested, but there doesn't seem to be an option (see screenshot below). I'm using MailFence if that's important.

screenshot of Mailbox Behavior in Mac Mail app

I've tried adding a keyboard shortcut specific to Mail (see screenshot below), but it isn't doing what I want. Note that I have tried to name the shortcut 'Move to Trash', 'Move to trash', and 'Move to Trash Foo' where 'Foo' is the mailbox description and when I use the menu to move a message into trash I select Message -> Move to -> Trash -> Foo

screenshot of adding a Mac Mail keyboard shortcut

Best Answer

Actually, you don't need to go to all this effort. The default command+delete keyboard shortcut will do exactly what you want, so long as you've set your Mail preferences that way.

In summary, you need to:

  1. Go to Mail > Preferences
  2. Select the Accounts tab
  3. Select the account (or email address) from the left pane
  4. In the right pane, select the Mailbox Behaviours tab
  5. At the bottom, tick the checkbox for Move deleted messages to the Bin mailbox
  6. While at it, ensure that the other settings on this tab for erasing deleted messages are what you want

Now when using the command+delete keyboard shortcut to delete emails they will be moved to the Bin mailbox for the Account in question.

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