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Gmail IMAP does not sync

I've had my IMAP gmail account set up in mail.app for a few months. At first, it worked perfectly -- the two would sync up relatively quickly, both in terms of labeling/deleting email, and noting whether they were read or unread. About a week ago, mail.app started synching right after I would open it -- and then it would eventually label/delete email correctly, but would not change an unread message to read if I left it in my gmail inbox. Now, it isn't even labeling/deleting email -- it won't do anything except right after it is first opened. Manually telling it to synchronize has no effect -- the little clock icon in the account list doesn't even appear. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the 10.5.6 update -- after which, I did run the stand alone Mail update, hoping it would resolve this behavior (even though I wasn't having stability problems) -- but it didn't. Any ideas?

Late 2008 MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jan 10, 2009 12:35 PM

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56 replies

Jan 11, 2009 1:51 AM in response to SG8765

I and others are having this exact problem, I first noticed it around the time of 10.5.6 however I have tested this issue with 3 completely different Macs and Gmail accounts (running 10.5.5 AND 10.5.6) and all display the same problem.

I'm amazed only a few people are discussing this as I'm sure everyone who uses Gmail IMAP, an iPhone & one other Mac using Mail.app will run into this problem.

Basically leave a Mac turned on running Mail.app during the day while you are at work and read all your emails during that day on your iPhone, when you return home from work the Mac (running Mail.app) will report ALL emails received during that day as UNREAD.

My guess is that the problem is with Apple Mail.app as it's instantly fixed with a quick restart of Mail.app

Jan 11, 2009 4:24 AM in response to SG8765

Same problem here. I guess Mail.app isn't as mature as it should be right now cause this is basic stuff. Hopefully Apple is looking into this and attempting to fix is ASAP. Quite annoying. I read one rumor Apple may be avoiding this to boast their own Cloud services (Mobile Me) as the best solution. I'm ot saying I believe that crap but hey I've seen crazier things. LOL! When I first setup Gmail IMAP with Mail.app it worked as smooth and quickly as can be. Apple please bring back this nice compatibility...

Jan 11, 2009 6:45 AM in response to SG8765

I'm having the same problem as well...Seemed like it happened right around 10.5.6 update, but I'm not sure. I've completely uninstalled and reinstalled Mail.app several times with no luck.

I've now reinstalled my OS and am back to 10.5.2 - going to try and see if the problem happens again and hopefully will be able to associate it better with an update or another program or plugin. I'll post back here if I find anything more.

Jan 11, 2009 7:58 AM in response to jakeboom

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.

Jan 15, 2009 11:14 AM in response to SG8765

Remember, *Gmail is still beta*. That's not an accidental labeling oversight by Google. My sense is that Google is still struggling with reconciling IMAP, which is folder-based, with Gmail's new approach of using tags instead of folders.

I think if you use Gmail via IMAP, you're going to be having sync issues in one way or another. The unanswered question is whether or not the Gmail team has painted themselves into a corner by choosing to reinvent the wheel (tags instead of folders to organize email). Gmail may never make it out of beta, if these problems keep surfacing.

I think the best solution (which I'm having a hard time accepting myself), is to switch to Thunderbird, since the open-source community seems to implement fixes faster than the closed-source community. Thus, as the Gmail team deploys new code, the Mozilla team will tweak T-bird to cope with the change, and probably do it faster than Apple.

Other thoughts? I accept my amazing talent at being completely wrong... 🙂

Jan 16, 2009 4:12 AM in response to Ian Whitworth

I have tried Thunderbird but I personally didn't like the 90's style Outlook UI. I think I may have to give up on Mail.app and Gmail working in harmony for now and use Mailplane until it gets sorted, Gmail is just too good to give up on. The annoying thing is that the Mail client on the iPhone works beautifully with Gmail, if Apple can get it working seamlessly on the iPhone why not OS X.

Gmail IMAP does not sync

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