Permanently Deleting Emails in Webmail

Why "delete" often isn't delete

When you delete a message in webmail, it usually does not vanish, it moves to the Trash folder, where it sits and keeps taking up your mailbox storage. For everyday use that is exactly what you want, a safety net in case you delete something by mistake. But it means "deleting" mail does not actually free up space, which catches people out when their mailbox fills up despite them deleting things constantly.

This article is about genuinely removing mail, both to free space and, occasionally, to make sure something sensitive is really gone.

The two-step nature of deleting

Deleting mail properly is two actions, not one:

1. Delete the message, which moves it to Trash. It is now out of your inbox but still on the server, still counting against your storage.
2. Empty the Trash, which is what permanently removes it. Only now is the space actually freed and the mail genuinely gone.

Most "my mailbox is full even though I delete everything" problems come down to never doing the second step. The mail was only ever moved, never removed.

Emptying the Trash in Roundcube

In our webmail, Roundcube, reached at yourdomain.tld/webmail:

1. Find the Trash folder in the folder list on the left.
2. Right-click it and choose Empty, or select the folder and use the Empty option in the folder actions.
3. Confirm, and everything in Trash is permanently deleted.

The same logic applies to the Junk or Spam folder, it holds mail too, and it counts against your storage until you empty it. When you are clearing space, empty both.

Deleting without sending to Trash at all

If you want a message gone immediately, skipping the Trash step, hold Shift while pressing Delete on a selected message in Roundcube. This deletes it permanently in one action rather than moving it to Trash first. Use this deliberately and carefully: there is no safety net, a Shift-deleted message is not recoverable from Trash because it never went there.

Freeing real space: the usual targets

If you came here because your mailbox is full, the fastest wins are almost always:

• Empty the Trash, the step most people skip.
• Empty the Junk or Spam folder.
• Clear out the Sent folder, which quietly hoards every large attachment you have ever sent, and which people rarely think to check.

Our article on full mailboxes covers clearing space in more depth, and our article on managing disk space covers the wider picture of what uses your hosting account's storage.

A note on other devices

Because webmail works on the live copy of your mailbox on the server, emptying Trash in webmail removes that mail everywhere, it will disappear from your phone and desktop mail programs too, since they are all looking at the same server mailbox over IMAP. That is the point, and it is why webmail is the reliable place to clear space, as our article on why webmail and your mail program sometimes disagree explains. One genuine permanent deletion, reflected on every device.

Good to know

Permanent means permanent. Once you empty the Trash or Shift-delete a message, it is gone, we cannot recover individual deleted emails for you, so if a message might matter, move it to a folder rather than deleting it. The habit worth building is the opposite of what causes full mailboxes: delete freely during the day, and empty the Trash deliberately when you actually mean to let that mail go for good, knowing that once you do, there is no getting it back.