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User profile for user: Gil Woolley
Gil Woolley Author
User level: Level 1
49 points

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

I organize my incoming mail into many boxes. I move each individual email to the chosen box. Sometimes it will not move. Sometimes it moves but then jumps back into Inbox. This just happened to about 15 or 20 emails I'd moved out of Inbox. Why? How do I stop it. Rebuild Inbox does not help.


When an email will not move, I temporarily select a mailbox other than Inbox and then select Inbox again and the email I wanted to move will have now moved. Sometimes the email does move. I have seen no repeating pattern for when moving the email works and when it doesn't work.


Mac OS Catalina 10.16.7. 2019 27" iMac.

Apple Mail Version 13.4 (3608.120.23.2.6)


Any clues, fixes or permanent cures?

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 25, 2021 11:15 AM

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User profile for user: steve626
steve626
User level: Level 6
11,357 points

Posted on May 27, 2021 8:18 AM

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.

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User profile for user: steve626
steve626
User level: Level 6
11,357 points

May 27, 2021 8:18 AM in response to Gil Woolley

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.

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User profile for user: i_rina
i_rina
User level: Community Specialist

May 26, 2021 10:36 AM in response to Gil Woolley

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.

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User profile for user: Gil Woolley
Gil Woolley Author
User level: Level 1
49 points

May 26, 2021 7:16 PM in response to i_rina

The account is an IMAP account.

Just before I wrote the complaint, I had about 15 or 20 emails from various people, say 10 or 15. I store my received and transmitted emails by people's first names so that would have been 10 to 15 accounts where the emails snapped back into the inbox.


My account is with my professional organization IEEE - Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineering. It is a special account set up with Google. So, I think of it as basically a gmail account.


I seriously doubt that 10 to 15 people are sending me emails with illegal characters but I don't know how to rule that out. As you said, it might be I have too many megabiyes of data stored but I've never received a complaint from IEEE or Google. But my trove of emails goes back many years and to and from many persons.


Since the email are stored on the server and not on my computer, I don't know how to learn how many terabytes I am occupying. I doubt it is a gigabyte.


I can log into my account using Safari and move emails around and they do not snap back. However, Apple Mail doesn't always recognize the changes I've done in the browser and next time I look in Apple Mail, the emails may have moved back into the Inbox. Well, I'm not sure of that last. But, I don't think they snap back in the browser. Only in Apple Mail.


You also said that it is possible the email server might be adding these illegal characters. I'm not sure How I would check that. I can look at an email in BBedit if that would show an illegal character. What would I look for?

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User profile for user: Chris_C1
Chris_C1
User level: Community Specialist

May 27, 2021 7:51 AM in response to Gil Woolley

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!

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User profile for user: Gil Woolley
Gil Woolley Author
User level: Level 1
49 points

May 27, 2021 8:06 PM in response to steve626

Steve626,


Well that helps me understand the problem much better. The "fix" rather than a solution is to use the browser to view the email and do the moves at the browser level. I guess that is what I'll be doing.


I just had an instance where I moved several emails to two different people and they did not move in Apple Mail.


Then I clicked on a different mailbox, probably either the Sent mailbox or the Trash mailbox and when I went back to the Inbox, the emails had moved.


I was about to go move the emails at the browser level but Apple Mail had already done it while I was looking in the other mail box.


Thanks for the insight. I'll quit complaining about it.



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

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