How to Enable Swipe to Delete in Windows 10 Mail

If you have a tablet or touchscreen laptop running Windows 10, you can swipe your way to an empty inbox just as easily as you can on your smartphone's email client. Here's how to set up swipe to delete in the Windows 10 Mail app and get rid of unwanted messages with a single finger stroke.

In the Windows 10 Mail app, you can swipe left or right on an email message to perform a set action on it: flag the email, mark it as read or unread, move the email to a different folder, archive it, or delete it. Below, we'll show you how to configure the Mail app so when you swipe from right to left the email will be deleted.

How to Set Up Swipe to Delete in the Mail App in Windows 10

1. Open the Settings menu in Mail. It's that little gear icon in the bottom left side of the Mail app.

2. Click Options in the Settings menu. The swipe actions setting should already be toggled to "On," but if it's not, change the setting so swipe actions are on.

3. Select "Delete" from the "Swipe left/hover" menu." By default, this option is set to archive emails, and the swipe right setting is set to flag an email.

4. Click anywhere outside of the Options pane to close it. Your settings are saved automatically.

You can follow these same steps to configure the settings for swiping from left to right (e.g., instead of setting a flag, you could swipe right to archive an email or mark it as read) or to set a different action for swiping from right to left.