Q: On my iPhone, my Outlook.com e-mail account won't allow me to send messages to the trash. I get an error report that says "Unable to move message. The message could not be moved to the mailbox Trash." How can I fix this problem?
Linda Reed, Green Valley, Ariz.
A: This is a common problem that can be resolved by changing a few settings.
What's the issue? Your phone is synchronized with your e-mail provider's mail server. That means that any e-mail action you take on the iPhone is being duplicated on the server.
But this synchronization only works if your iPhone plays by the e-mail server's rules. In order to maintain the relationship, your phone must delete e-mail messages to a Trash folder located on Outlook.com's mail server.
However, your phone is instead trying to delete e-mail messages by sending them to the iPhone's own Trash folder. As a result, the e-mail doesn't get deleted and you get an error message.
This can be fixed by going to the iPhone's settings, and clicking on "mail" and then "accounts." Click on "Outlook.com" and then on "account" (your e-mail address appears beside it.) Then click on "advanced" and look at the section called "mailbox behaviors." Click on "deleted mailbox," and you will see a list of options for where deleted mail should go.
My guess is that your phone has a checkmark beside "Trash" under the heading "on my phone." You need to change that by going to following section, called "on the server," and click "Trash" there. A checkmark should to appear beside that option.