Gmail trash retention?

[Kelly_McMahon]

It seems that when emails are deleted they stay in a user's Trash in Gmail indefinitely.  Is there a setting for Gmail trash deletion in the admin console?  Thanks!

[bethhughes]

I am in the US and our Gmail Trash has a banner that says, "Messages that have been in Trash more than 30 days will be automatically deleted." Do you see this?

[Kelly_McMahon]

Yes, I am in the US, too and I see that banner which is why I am confused about this.  Are yours deleting after 30 days?

[bethhughes]

The oldest email that I have is from the end of March. The emails that have been in trach for more than 30 days have been automatically deleted. It's important to know that the 30 days start when you place the email into trash and not by the date received/sent on the email. So, if I put an email from last year in the trash it will be there for 30 days before it is deleted even though the sent date was 12 months ago. Is this what you are seeing?

[Kelly_McMahon]

Maybe... I have been doing some clean up so maybe that is what I am seeing. LOL  I am going to keep any eye on this.  Thanks!

[bethhughes]

Good for you! Clean up takes time but is rewarding. You have the option to manually empty the trash, too. You can select "Empty Trash Now" when in the Trash folder or you can select some of the oldest ones and delete those. If you select Empty Trash Now, it will immediately remove ALL the emails in Trash. If you are wanting to select some of the older ones, then click on the right arrow next to the email count in the upper right corner while in the Trash folder/label. Then go to the last page and manually delete some of the older ones.