Moving to IMAP from POP can be a pain, and my biggest ‘gripe’ with it is the way that items need to be’Deleted’ AND’Purged’ when you’re trying to get rid of them. When an email is highlighted and the delete icon, context menu item, or keyboard key is pressed, all that happens is the message is flagged for deletion, and appears struck-through. To get rid of it fully, you need to go to the ‘Edit’ menu, and select the ‘Purge Deleted Messages’ item.

Solution

Well this isn’t a fix really, managing IMAP email still sucks, but it should make life easier. It’s possible to add a ‘Purge Deleted Messages’ button to your toolbar, anywhere you like, but I’d suggest putting it next to your existing delete ‘X’ icon like this:

Outlook toolbar showing the new button

To do this:

• Open the ‘View’ menu item, select ‘Toolbars’, and then click ‘Customize…’.
• The ‘Customize’ window pops-up, and select the ‘Commands’ Tab.
• In the left-pane labeled ‘Categories:’, find and select the ‘Edit’ item.
• In the right-pane labelled ‘Commands:’, scroll down until you find ‘Purge Deleted Items’ (see below):

Purge item selected, ready to be added to toolbar

• Click-and-hold on the ‘Purge Deleted Messages’ item, and drag it to the toolbar, then let go.
  Note: A special mouse-cursor will show while you’re dragging, showing a cross (‘X’). Once you are hovering over a place in the toolbar that the item can be added to, the cursor will change and show a plus sign (‘+’).
• Now, once you have deleted the emails you want to, you can purge them with one button.