Lotus Notes messages stay in the Trash folder once they are deleted for the time specified in your mail preferences under "Soft Delete," or until you explicitly delete them from trash. "Soft Delete" is a setting that can be used to automatically delete emails from the trash folder after a period of time defined by the user. This staged deletion gives you a chance to retrieve messages if you make a mistake.

To set up Soft Delete:

1. Open Lotus Notes, then the Inbox. Open the Tools dropdown menu and go to Preferences.
   
   
   
   
2. Go to Mail tab then the Basics tab. To set the expire time, type in the number of hours in the Soft Delete expire time box.