Can't trash mail in KMail

Kmail version 5.16.1 (20.12.0)
IMAP account

I have been having a problem for months with Kmail that the option to trash a message from the Inbox root is always ghosted grey.

I can trash messages from any other sub-folder.

I do not have this problem in Kmail running in 15.2 on my laptop.

I can trash mail in the account just fine using Claws Mail.

Since it works on my laptop and Claws Mail I suspect have a configured something wrong. But I can’t find it even with side-by-side option-by-option comparison with my laptop. Any suggestions on what could be causing this?

Do all your local mail directories include the following directories?


 > ls -a ~/.local/share/local-mail/
.  ..  cur  drafts  inbox  new  outbox  sent-mail  templates  tmp  trash
 > 

If you login to the Web interface of your IMAP service provider, what are the settings there?

Can you delete e-Mails via the Web interface? – Does the Trash folder at the IMAP server – the folder you access via the Web interface – contain the deleted e-Mails?

If you delete the e-Mails via the Web interface, does the KMail IMAP “trash” folder synchronise properly?

Are there any error indications either in the user’s systemd Journal (journalctl) or, in the KDE session logfile?

  • For SDDM and X.Org server, the logfile is ‘~/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log’ …