The art of the double delete with mac mail and gmail

March 29, 2012 6:55 AM

Mac Mail Filter: So I've added Gmail to my list of accounts. But when I delete a message on the inbox, lower down, in the IMAP folders, it doesn't delete there. Why not?

Maybe I'm doing this wrong. I've got four different accounts. All IMAP. And when I delete something in the inbox of one, it deletes in IMAP folders lower down in Mac Mail. My work. My apple mail. Just NOT the gmail. With the gmail, I delete in my inbox and then I have to delete in the big folder lower down. How do I set this up so I don't have this problem?

posted by rileyray3000 to Technology (3 answers total)

Do you mean it doesn't get deleted from the "All Mail" folder? "Delete" will actually just archive a message when accessing Gmail through IMAP. To really delete a message, you have to move it to the Trash folder.
posted by stopgap at 7:03 AM on March 29, 2012

Actually you *can* delete; the Mail app on the iPhone etc will do archive instead but Mail.app on the Mac does not (at least not in Snow Leopard). But stopgap is correct that messages in the Trash folder will still be in All Mail until they are emptied from the trash.
posted by olecranon at 7:12 AM on March 29, 2012

This is a function of gmail (mine does the same thing). The inbox is synced to the inbox, so if you delete it from there, your mail programme deletes it in your mailbox, but in gmail all mail also exists in the all mail folder.

So it is (from gmails perspective) deleting purely the 'inbox' label based on your actions and still presenting the same message lower down in the inbox. Your mail programme will see two versions because it is syncing the same message in two folders.

So yes, move it to trash (set up your email client trash to be used by gmail).
posted by Brockles at 7:16 AM on March 29, 2012