Moved emails will not stay in my chosen mailbox. They keep snapping back to Inbox. Rebuild does not help.

GMAIL is often called "IMAP" and there is also a POP version of GMAIL. However GMAIL has its own special version of IMAP and POP and neither strictly adheres to IMAP or POP protocols, but a special variant of each. This is seen especially with "folders" in GMAIL "IMAP," because as you probably notice when accessing GMAIL via a browser, GMAIL uses flags or labels that are attached to emails. Mail clients like Apple Mail try to handle this using constructs that people are used to seeing in mail clients, using "folders" to try to accomplish what GMAIL does with its labels/tags. So while you may think you are "moving" a message to a folder that you have created, there is no such folder on the GMAIL server, it is interpreted as a tag or label. The messages all remain in the ALL MAIL folder within GMAIL, even those you think you are "moving." The other folders in GMAIL you see are really labels attached to that master set of emails inside ALL MAIL.

This sometimes leads to behaviors like you describe -- the mail client "moves" a message to a "folder" but on the GMAIL server, this would be assigning a label or tag and no message is physically moved. The results may be inconsistent because one is doing something within the mail client that does not actually happen on the GMAIL server. These issues are not unique to Apple Mail -- other mail clients struggle with trying to represent what is going on within GMAIL. It is not true IMAP nor true POP.

You might be best served simply accessing your GMAIL via a browser interface. Then you are using the GMAIL options in its native mode. Or use Apple Mail but only make use of the GMAIL provided labels ("folders"). Understand that assigning a folder (label) to a message does not actually move that message within the mail client.

On top of this confusing stuff, you may be using a custom version of GMAIL that is provided for institutional users like IEEE. I have such an account also through IEEE but have not made much use of it yet. It appears to be a different version of the standard GMAIL. That may add new wrinkles.

I also suggest you spend some time on the GMAIL server via a web browser to understand better the options offered by GMAIL and how its "labels" work. They are represented by "folders" in clients like Apple Mail but within GMAIL these are not true folders and don't actually behave like them.

Hi Gil Woolley,

Thanks for being part of Apple Support Communities. We'd understand that you're having issues with moving mail within your folders. We'd like to help.

When this happens, do you notice if this is isolated to one email account on your Mac or more than one? Do you know if this email account is an IMAP account? If so, it's possible that the messages contain invalid characters (typically added by a mail server) or are too large, or you exceeded the storage limits set by your email account provider. You can find information on that and how to move emails here: Move or copy emails in Mail on Mac.

Let us know more about this behavior and we'll continue to help.

Take care.

Gil,

Thanks for the update.

You mentioned that you weren't sure if the messages snapped back to the inbox after moving them in the web browser. It would be helpful to know if that does happen. Can you test that out?

Since Apple Mail follows the settings set from 3rd party email providers, it would be best to contact Google about their settings. Having them check the mail settings and storage limits on your specific account can help.

Keep us updated on how that goes.

Cheers!