I do not know of any means of changing the order of the context drop down menu. Delete is useually positioned at the bottom to ensure no accidental delete.

However, there's more than one method of deleting. select email and press 'Delete' button in the header or press 'Delete' key.

Put a 'Delete' icon/button on the Mail Toolbar. Select email and use that button.

but all of these above do open the email in the Message Pane prior to deleting.

right click on email and use 'Ctrl'+'D' or 'Shift' + 'D' shortcuts instead of clicking on the 'Delete' option in drop down. This does not open email.

re: For me, deleting is the most common action, Any particular reason why? eg: Are you deleting Junk? If yes, then I suggest you set up your Junk Controls and train them to recognise Junk and auto move to Junk Folder. then you can empty the Junk either automatically or right click on Juk folder and select to empty then compact.

Or if you have many emails to delete: Hold down Ctrl key and left click to select loads of different emails which will appear as 'conversations' in lower message pane then clik on Delete button to perform one action on a batch of emails. This asves a huge amount of time.

I've set up all the Junk controls, but I continue to get a lot of spam in my inbox. For obvious reasons, I don't want to click on those messages to delete them. However, I did discover just now that clicking in the Junk column next to the messages deletes them instantly without having to click on delete.

Thanks for responding.

Why not use the Delete key on your keyboard, or the Delete button on the toolbar?