Configure Mail to Empty the Trash on a Schedule
If remembering to empty the trash regularly isn’t high on your priority list, you can instruct the Mail application when and how often to empty the trash for you. To empty the Trash on a schedule, complete the following steps:
Empty the Trash Manually
If you prefer to control when the Trash is emptied, you can do so manually and quickly. To empty the Trash manually, complete the following steps:
Empty the Trash by Using a Keyboard Shortcut
To empty all the trash folders in Mail and permanently erase deleted messages, complete the following steps:
What’s a Hard Delete?
If you’re confident that you’ll never make a poor trash decision, you may prefer to use a hard delete with your Mail accounts. In Mail, select an email you want to delete and then press the keyboard shortcut Option+Del to delete the message and skip the trash folder entirely.
How to Restore Deleted Mail Messages
After you delete the contents of Mail’s Trash folder, the only way to recover a message is to restore it from a backup. If you use Time Machine, for example, go back to the day before you deleted the email message. Then, open Mail, locate the message, and retrieve it.
