Steve Cohen4
Level 1 (145 points)

Q: Converting POP to IMAP for Gmail

I've been using the Apple Mail app for many years, to access gmail. I almost never access gmail with a browser. But the gmail account is a POP account, which, now that I have an iPhone, is pretty frustrating.

 

I understand how to convert the gmail account (disable account on Mac, change account type at Google website, create new IMAP account on Mac). But this will sync my Mac to the mail Google now has. And since I've been managing the whole account from the Mac, and email deletions on the Mac have no effect on Gmail, Gmail has vast amounts of mail that I've deleted from the Mac.

 

How do I switch to IMAP and get the server to match what's on my Mac?

 

Many thanks to anyone who can help --

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Sep 1, 2014 10:29 AM

Close
Steve Cohen4

Q: Converting POP to IMAP for Gmail

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Sep 1, 2014 10:52 AM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 9 (50,302 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 1, 2014 10:52 AM in response to Steve Cohen4

    You can't, that is not how IMAP works. Manage what is on the server, that is all that counts.

  • by Kingoftypos,

    Kingoftypos Kingoftypos Sep 1, 2014 10:58 AM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 3 (757 points)
    Sep 1, 2014 10:58 AM in response to Steve Cohen4

    I never knew that gmail was ever POP. After a quick "google" pun intended, I found this link on their site...

    https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?hl=en

     

    KOT

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Sep 1, 2014 11:09 AM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 8 (49,846 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 1, 2014 11:09 AM in response to Steve Cohen4

    The fact that there are lots of emails still on the server that you trashed on your Mac has nothing to do with either POP or IMAP, Gmail is neither. They find it more difficult to harvest your personal information if you delete all the email, so they “archive” it for you. You need to go through your All Mail “label” on the web portal and delete all the email you don’t want to keep.

     

    You can set up Gmail to actually delete the emails you delete on your email client.

    On the Forwarding and POP/IMAP settings tab, set Auto-Expunge to Off and then set it to Move the Message to the Trash.

     

    As already mentioned, the server is the source of all organization on IMAP. Your client just reflects what it finds on the server.

  • by Steve Cohen4,

    Steve Cohen4 Steve Cohen4 Sep 2, 2014 8:34 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 1 (145 points)
    Sep 2, 2014 8:34 AM in response to Barney-15E

    Thanks, guys, that's very helpful, but discouraging.

     

    I found this article:

    How to convert a POP email account to IMAP

     

    The basic idea in the article is that you take your whole inbox, drag it to a folder "On My Mac", then switch the account type and set up the IMAP account on the Mac. Then drag all the messages from the folder you created back into your new inbox. You do the same for your sent folder and drafts folder.

     

    It seems that the article implies that when you put the mail back into the new IMAP account in Mac Mail, that the server will sync with it.

     

    Or … I could drag everything into folders "On My Mac" as an archive, delete everything from gmail (is there a way to do that?), then switch and essentially start over.

     

    Or … I could start forwarding all the Gmail POP mail to my icloud mail account and stop checking gmail.

     

    Does any of that make sense? Any other ideas? The idea of going through 4 1/2 years (and 2.5 GB) of mail via googles web interface and making sense of it seems pretty daunting to me.

     

    Thanks again --

  • by Steve Cohen4,

    Steve Cohen4 Steve Cohen4 Sep 4, 2014 3:22 PM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 1 (145 points)
    Sep 4, 2014 3:22 PM in response to Steve Cohen4

    If any of you are still tuning in here, this procedure seems to work. I just tried it on a small account I have, and it seems to have been successful. Haven't yet tried it on my main account.

     

    1. Create three folders "On My Mac" and drag all Inbox, Sent Mail and Drafts to those folders.

    2. Convert the account type from POP to IMAP on the gmail web site.

    3. On the Mac, disable the POP account and create a new IMAP account.

    4. From the Gmail site, delete all emails.

    5. For good measure, I deleted the trash, as well, which makes the deletions permanent.

    6. Back in Apple Mail, option-drag the messages back to the new Inbox, Sent & Drafts folders.

    7. Wait while everything syncs. Voila, Mac and Google site match.

     

    As I said, this worked for me, for a small account.

     

    Any thoughts from y'all? Anything I'm missing?

     

    Many thanks,

    Steve

  • by Kingoftypos,

    Kingoftypos Kingoftypos Sep 4, 2014 3:39 PM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 3 (757 points)
    Sep 4, 2014 3:39 PM in response to Steve Cohen4

    Just to clarify, you still have the exact same email address with gmail? Meaning it's still, say appleuser @ gmail.com? Or did you have to change it to something else, like appleuser1 @ gmail.com?

     

    KOT

  • by Steve Cohen4,

    Steve Cohen4 Steve Cohen4 Sep 4, 2014 4:02 PM in response to Kingoftypos
    Level 1 (145 points)
    Sep 4, 2014 4:02 PM in response to Kingoftypos

    Yes, same address. Just switching the account type.

  • by LA Woman,

    LA Woman LA Woman Sep 5, 2014 6:23 PM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 5, 2014 6:23 PM in response to Steve Cohen4

    I'm converting Gmail POP to IMAP on MacMail also... a bit frustrating until I found your post, specifically about "deleting all the mail and trash currently in Gmail." That was the MOST important part for my conversion.

     

    Now I'm in the process of moving my Mailboxes/Folders to the new IMAP email account.

     

    I have it up and running and synching... so far.

     

    Sweet   Thank you!!

  • by Steve Cohen4,

    Steve Cohen4 Steve Cohen4 Sep 5, 2014 7:48 PM in response to LA Woman
    Level 1 (145 points)
    Sep 5, 2014 7:48 PM in response to LA Woman

    Great. Thanks for sharing.

  • by Steve Cohen4,

    Steve Cohen4 Steve Cohen4 Sep 11, 2014 2:12 PM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 1 (145 points)
    Sep 11, 2014 2:12 PM in response to Steve Cohen4

    I finally took the plunge and converted my main gmail account -- all 20,000 messages. I used the above procedure and it worked. The only caveat being that when you drag your emails back into your inbox, it takes a L O N G time to upload them. It often seems to be happening at about 1 email per second -- so it took many hours. The other thing to note is that while it's happening all the email counts look wrong and the number of "read" and "unread" messages is wrong. But once everything uploaded it all straightened itself out.

  • by dolomite,

    dolomite dolomite Jan 27, 2015 7:51 AM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2015 7:51 AM in response to Steve Cohen4

    One issue missing from this discussion is what happens to folders "on my Mac" that are associated with the POP account that I wish to delete.  Before the IMAP account was added, the user had numerous files from the POP account that they organized into the "on my Mac" folder.  My understanding is that deleting the POP account will remove the local files in the "on my Mac" folder too.  Please advise.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Jan 27, 2015 8:04 AM in response to dolomite
    Level 9 (50,302 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 27, 2015 8:04 AM in response to dolomite

    dolomite wrote:

     

    One issue missing from this discussion is what happens to folders "on my Mac" that are associated with the POP account that I wish to delete.

    You should back them up before deleting the account if they are important to you. Export each folder to the desktop, you can restore them later.

  • by christinehwells,

    christinehwells christinehwells Feb 25, 2016 3:38 AM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 25, 2016 3:38 AM in response to Steve Cohen4

    Finally a solution!

     

    The only thing I am wondering is, step 3, do you let all the emails from the server download to the new imap account before you delete them all on the gmail web site? Or do you somehow stop that so that you can just drag the "old" ones in to your new "empty" imap inbox and so on? Couldn't you just wait with creating the imap account until after you deleted the emails on the gmail web site since you have what you need "on my mac" anyway or am I missing something?

     

    Really hoping you are still active here haha!

     

    Thanks!

  • by bbeckdance,

    bbeckdance bbeckdance Jul 13, 2016 11:26 AM in response to Steve Cohen4
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 13, 2016 11:26 AM in response to Steve Cohen4

    Steve, this is amazing!  Thanks for walking us through it step by step.  I am in the process of changing over ... and it is working!  Wow, after many years, so good to get this handled.