What are swipe options?
Clearing emails without opening them is possible thanks to swipe gestures. This allows you to quickly perform certain actions in the standard Mail app from the overview of incoming emails, without having to open each email. You then quickly swipe through your entire inbox. These swipe options have a certain effect in the standard settings, but not everyone finds this useful. Fortunately, you can adjust them to your own preferences. In this tip we explain how this works on your iPhone and iPad.
Customize Mail Swipe Options
You can adjust the swipe options via the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad. For left or right swipe, you specify which action you want to have associated with it. Here’s how it works:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Scroll down and tap (Apps) > Mail.
- Tap Swipe Options and make your selection.
Swipe options only shows archive?
If you don’t see the Delete option or the trash can in the swipe options, you’re probably using a Gmail account. You’ll need to make an adjustment first, because by default, Gmail is set to Archive instead of Delete.
Follow these steps:
- Go to the Settings app and navigate to (Apps) > Mail.
- Tap Mail > Mail Accounts.
- Tap on your Gmail account.
- Tap Account Settings > Advanced again
- Under the “Put deleted messages in” option, select Deleted.
- Now go to the Mail app and you will see that the swipe options now show a trash can.
Swipe options: this is what is possible
Note: In Swipe Options, you can ONLY control what the two blue highlighted buttons do. Swiping left customizes the middle button. Swiping right only has one button available. Here’s what you can customize:
- Swipe left. When you swipe left in the Mail app, an orange Mark button appears in the middle on the right side by default. If you want, you can set this to Mark as Read or Move Message.
- Swipe right. When you swipe right in the Mail app, a blue Mark as Read button appears on the left by default. You can set this to Flag, Move Message, or Archive if you want.
- Finally, you can disable both buttons by setting the respective option to ‘None’.
In addition to the mail overview, you can also use the swipe actions from iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 when reading an email. Simply swipe left or right and you will see the same options as in the mail overview.
Mail swipe options: useful for left-handers
These swipe options settings are useful for left-handed people. You can change Mail’s swipe options to work the other way around, which is more convenient if you’re operating the device with your left hand. Swipe Options also gives you the ability to archive emails without having to open a message on your iPhone and iPad.
Are these options just getting in your way? You can disable the button’s function, which will also make it disappear in the app when you swipe left or right.
More tips about the Mail app
We have even more tips to help you get the most out of the Mail app!
- Using markup language in the macOS Mail app
- Email and chat with Siri: here’s how to have messages read aloud and dictate
- How to easily unsubscribe from newsletters in the Mail app
- How to Save Email Attachments to iCloud Drive
- Back up Mail, Contacts, and Calendars on Mac
