Is it possible to setup a 3 server system, use cold storage with delete on all 3 and yet still have it try to replicate what is being deleted??  Asking for a friend.

Seriously, I have a test system and my cold storage drastically reduced drive space, yet on real system I have yet to see size reduction.  SQL report shows long list for files that will be, and have been, but I am wondering how I check to make sure the cold storage completes before the replication runs?  Or am I overthinking this?