Google Mail + Mail.app + IMAP not playing nicely since 10.5.6
Ever since upgrading to 10.5.6 I've found that Mail.app is not working with Google Mail properly over IMAP.
Mail.app is slow to show new emails and if the new emails are marked as read via my iPhone or the Google website the changes are not reflected in Mail.app, as I say the iPhones Mail app works fine.
Are there any other GMail/IMAP/Mail.app users having similar problems out there?
2.16Ghz iMac Intel core 2 duo,
Mac OS X (10.5.6),
MacBook 2 GHz
doogald wrote:
However, I should also say that I have installed Thunderbird and set up Gmail with IMAP access, and it is exhibiting the exact same behavior.
Well I've just reinstalled Tiger (10.4.7) without running any updates. I've setup Mail.app 2.1.1 (752.3) and the problem is EXACTLY the same. In my opinion Google changed their IMAP protocol in some way around early December 08 that has broken the way Mail.app works.
I don't believe Apple changed Mail.app in 10.5.6 as I first thought, I think it's just a coincidence that the problem occurred around the same time as 10.5.6's release.
I have the exact same issue - I now have Thunderbird installed as well (using Gmail through IMAP), and it seems to update its inbox just fine. This started before the 10.5.6 update, maybe a few weeks ago, for me.
Highly non-standard? Can't manipulate folders? Huh. I do virtually all of the manipulation and changes to my Gmail accounts from Mail. I rename them, delete them, create them, move mail to and from them... I just don't see this "non-standard" nature of Gmail.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's quite standard, although the concepts are a bit different (labels v. folders, archive as the default).
I am also having exactly the same problem.
Delete a message from iphone and it works fine.
Read a message from the iphone, and it doesn't update on the mail.app
It does update when you exit mail and re-open
This is most certainly a bug.
ssh Mac wrote:
In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's quite standard, although the concepts are a bit different (labels v. folders, archive as the default).
Yes, I have issue with Mail and using gmail accounts. IMAP issues. Main problem, I can not send my email, it takes a long time, sometimes never. Also I removed description as suggested by someone, no difference. I quit Mail and start up again, seem to work often, but not always. Even restarting seem to work, but doesn't last. It a chore and have to watch, to be sure the mail does go out.
10.5 and up, has lots of issues. but life is still better then window's headaches. Hurry up Apple, crack the whip on the programmers.
- the inbox does eventually update the status of messages, though I haven't figured out the special steps - whether it just happens after a while, after my computer wakes from sleep, whatever.
- I tried turning off IDLE support - it does not seem to help
- I also did turn off Gmail's extended IMAP support, so I am getting all of my labels as folders.
- When I go to the IMAP folders in Mail.app - the ones that have all of my labels as folders, along with "All Mail", "Spam", etc. - the status of messages in these folders does change immediately.
- I installed Thunderbird, and the exact same thing happens - the messages in the InBox do not have status updated when I mark a message unread in the web interface, but the messages in individual IMAP folders do update when I open them.
- For both Mail.app and Thunderbird, if I close the app and reopen it, the Inbox folders are refreshed correctly. However, when the app is open, there does not seem to be a way to make the application do a full mail check - "synchronize" in Mail does not do anything, "Get Mail" in Thunderbird or Mail does nothing about a message whose status has changed, etc.
- None of my (three) other IMAP mail accounts have these issues, in Mail.app or Thunderbird.
- This behavior started very recently - at the end of December
Strangely, though, my Windows Mobile phone works as you would want - change the status of a message on the web interface is passed along to the device, and vice versa. I suspect that Mail.app and Thunderbird are doing a different sort of mail check - a "what has changed since the last update" - rather than a full mail check.
This looks to me more and more as if it is an issue with Google's IMAP behavior changing something in the latter part of December rather than anything that Apple Mail has done.
doogald wrote:
This looks to me more and more as if it is an issue with Google's IMAP behavior changing something in the latter part of December rather than anything that Apple Mail has done.
I agree, I even went back to Tiger and the problem still persists, it MUST be a Google issue. The iPhone's Mail app works flawlessly however.
I noticed the sudden change around early/mid December, I'm recently discovering another Google issue in Mail.app, attached photos are every now and then showing as tiny thumbnails, to view them full size you need to open them in Preview.
As another user said on this forum Gmail IS beta, we should remember that I suppose.
I'm having the exact same issues as everyone, to the point that I've given up using the Mail.app and now rely solely on my iPhone, or gmail web if I need to write a novel.
I've tested this in Thunderbird 2 & 3, iPhone Mail and Windows Vista Mail, ALL work perfectly.
The 'get mail' that Mail.app does initially on startup is obviously not the same as pressing the 'Get mail' button once the app is running, the two are different.
If Apple just changed Mail to do the same 'get mail' as on launch everytime 'get mail' is pressed or every 5 minutes it would solve the problem.
Googlemail's implementation of IMAP can't be radically non-standard otherwise it would not work in other clients (which it does).
