Simple script to empty your gmail trash

Since the setting to automatically delete trash is not configurable and only happens every 30 days, you can use this to empty your trash on a more regular basis using launchd or a crontask.

Follow the instructions here to generate a client_secret.json file and place it alongside the script.

https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/quickstart/python

$ pip install --upgrade google-api-python-client
$ python empty-trash.py

Setup a gmail-empty-trash.plist file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents

This setup will run the script every ten minutes. (change the /path/to/python and /path/to/script values to match your environment)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
   "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
 <plist version="1.0">
 <dict>
     <key>Label</key>
     <string>com.username.gmail</string>
     <key>ProgramArguments</key>
     <array>
         <string>/path/to/python</string>
         <string>/path/to/script/empty-trash.py</string>
     </array>
     <key>StartInterval</key>
     <integer>600</integer>
 </dict>
 </plist>

Load the LaunchAgent

$ launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/gmail-empty-trash.plist

A simple crontask could be configured to run the script on Linux.

*/10 * * * * /path/to/script/empty-trash.py