How to Delete Instead of Archive Google G Suite Emails on the iOS Mail App

As someone who generally enjoys using iOS’s pre-installed apps, my Google G Suite account is one that I could never use satisfactorily on the Mail app. Deleting an email always archived it instead of moving it to the trash.

You can change the default archive button into a delete button in the account’s advanced settings within Mail, but that does not solve the underlying issue. After countless of online research, I gave up and used Google’s own Gmail or Gmail Inbox apps.

Today, I stumbled upon a curious option in G Suite’s admin panel: In the Device Management > Advanced Settings > Google Sync, you will find a checkbox labeled Automatically enable “Delete Email as Trash” setting on Google Sync devices.

This was turned off. If you activate it and save your settings, the delete behavior on mobile devices will change to an actual deletion. Emails will be correctly moved to the trash instead of the archive.

Now I can finally unify all my email accounts in Apple’s Mail app for iOS.