Why do email providers keep copies of emails even after you delete them?

I set up my iphone with email for the very first time and linked it with my hotmail account. I wasn't sure what all the settings were for and selected one that said something like 'download all email' . I thought it meant it would download all the old emails i have saved in my inbox.

It actually downloaded every single email i'd ever sent or received since i opened the account way back in 2003. If i deleted the emails, then how could the iphone have restored them? I was able to click on emails 10 years old and read them!

How is not a privacy violation for them to have kept all my deleted emails?! Why are they saving them all?

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In IMAP protocol, messages can be flagged for deletion, then a folder can be expunged. If they are just marked for deletion, they are still there. Usually clients trigger an expunge when they logout.
Most clients use a mode where they move mail to a trash folder - it's copied, then flagged for delete and probably expunged. So it's still in the trash folder until you explicitly empty the trash, unless there's a setting to expire old messages automatically.
In that model, mail stays on the server and you can see it from any device, with the same flags (unread, answered, important etc.)
Older devices use POP3 which downloads mail to a single client. Usually there's an option to not delete mail from the server, which is a good idea if you have more than one computer. If it's not deleted, it's not deleted.

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