I don't know what's going on here.. I've set the option in the menu that says 'when discarding emails' to 'archive' instead of delete. But when I hit the delete key on an email, it goes to Trash instead of Archive. Is there no way to set this???
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Can't get Mail to archive when hitting 'delete' key?
- Thread starter dingobiatch
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What option would that be? I've never seen that option in Mail and frankly, it doesn't seem to make sense.
Also, even if that option exists keep in mind that discarding and deleting can be two different things. Discarding can simply mean that you've read it and are done with it.
It's part of the advanced mail settings both on Mac and iOS/iPadOS. Go to iCloud > scroll to the bottom > Mail > Advanced. I can see defaulting to Archive being very useful, although I don't use it.
Why it's not working for the OP, I'm not sure yet. I'll try to do some testing.
Edit: the Mac options are different; see my post below.
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Update: I got this to work on my iPad, although it didn't initially. The difference? After updating the Discarded Messages option to Archive, go back one screen and hit Done. Once I did that, it worked right away.
Visually the Trash icon is replaced by the Archive icon in the toolbar, and when swiping left, Delete is replaced by Archive. I haven't done it on my Mac (and it's getting late), but the changes will be similar I imagine.
Visually the Trash icon is replaced by the Archive icon in the toolbar, and when swiping left, Delete is replaced by Archive. I haven't done it on my Mac (and it's getting late), but the changes will be similar I imagine.
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You do of course realize that this is the Mac Apps forum and not the iOS or iPad OS forum, right? 
Hence my confusion. Nevermind then.
Hence my confusion. Nevermind then.
I'm talking about Mac's Mail app on Catalina. I'm using my gmail account, so it's not an iCloud setting. In any other mail app I've ever used, you can set it so hitting delete (or swiping on iOS) will 'archive' an email instead of 'delete' an email. I've changed every setting I can see that sounds like it does that in Mail, but it's not actually changing the behavior. It always sends mail to trash.
Mac Mail does have a swipe setting to archive in Monterey (and maybe earlier), something I had overlooked when responding a year ago. But it won't do it via the delete key; it has to be swipe to archive. Change Preferences > Viewing > Move discarded message into: [Trash] [Archive] for the two swipe options.