Outlook 2013 and GMail: I want outlook delete action to archive not trash

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In Outlook 2010 there was an option to have the delete action move the e-mails into a specific IMAP folder instead of moving them to trash. That option is apparently has been dropped in Outlook 2013.

When I delete an e-mail in Outlook 2013, it ends up in the trash folder on GMail. I prefer to just archive the e-mails in another folder/label and keep them forever or until I hit my 10 GB limit (which ever comes first :)).

My GMail IMAP settings are:

  • When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted: Auto-Expunge on – Immediately update the server.

  • When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder: Archive the message (default)

I would have thought that with these settings it would be impossible for an IMAP client to trash an e-mail.

Best Answer

After searching in a lot of forums, posts, and comments,

A combination of two solutions finally fixed this issue for me on 3 different gmail accounts.

These are the steps:

  1. Delete the label "deleted items" from your gmail account (previous outlook version may have added this label, all the mail with that label will move to archive)
  2. In Outlook in the left nav folder list, click on "[Gmail]"
  3. Right click on [Gmail] .. IMAP folders
  4. Tick the box "When displaying hierarchy in Outlook, show only subscribed folders"
  5. Restart Outlook 2013

After the restart a new folder "deleted items (This computer only)" will appear in your outlook and from now on all of the deleted items will go there locally and to Archive on Gmail.

BTW, From now on you can see the "all mail" folder as well.

Enjoy.

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