In Gmail, there is a way to delete email from your Sent folder while keeping archived copies in your All Mail folder. However, it is not possible to do this through the Gmail web interface. Instead, you must connect to your Gmail account from another email client via Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP).
If I delete my sent messages, will the recipient's received messages in his email also be deleted?
To delete an email you sent from Gmail's Sent Mail folder while still keeping a copy under All Mail, drag the message from Sent Mail to another Gmail folder. For example, you might want to do this if you connect your Gmail account to Microsoft Outlook.
The next time you check your mail through the Gmail web interface, the message will be gone from your Sent folder, but you can still find it in the other folder. You can then search All Mail to find it in the future.
When you archive a message in Gmail, it is removed from your inbox and a copy is kept in the All Mail folder for later reference. The only way to remove a message from your Outbox is to delete it, which also removes it from All Mail. If you delete the message in the Gmail web interface under Sent Mail, it is moved to the Trash folder and eventually disappears, even if you had previously archived it.
