Mail, GMail and the dreaded archive (all mail) folder.

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Mail, GMail and the dreaded archive (all mail) folder.

I recently moved my email account to Gmail. (Long story - I didn't want to, but Apple iCloud mail didn't seem to want me)

So now I have this 'Archive' folder on all my Macs and iOS devices, although the folder appears to be called "All Mail" on the iOS devices. How do I get rid of this?

My issue with it is as follows:

These folders appear to have copies of all mail sent or received from that particular email account. If I delete an email from my "Inbox" or "Sent" box, it also gets removed from the "Archive". If I delete an email from the "Archive", it also gets deleted from the "Inbox" or "Sent" box, as the case may be. This isn't illogical, but it unnecessarily duplicates the "Inbox" and "Sent" boxes.

However, the goofy part comes when you move emails from the "Inbox" or "Sent" box to "another" folder. When I move emails in this way, they disappear from the "Inbox" or "Sent" box as the case may be, but not from the "Archive". After doing this, deleting emails from the "other" folder doesn't delete them from the "Archive" or vice versa.

So, at any time, there may be some emails in the "Archive" that are also in the "Inbox" or "Sent" box as the case may be and some that are also in the "other" folder. Those in the "other" folder are unnecessary duplicates, take up two lots of space, and aren't wanted. Unfortunately, unless I go through all the emails in the "Archive" before deleting any, I may inadvertently delete emails that are in the "Inbox" or "Sent" box, which aren't duplicates and therefore also get deleted from the "Inbox" or "Sent" box.

As you can imagine, it creates a significant amount of work, manually checking whether each email is also in the other folder, Inbox or Sent box, before deciding to delete them.

iMac 24″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Jan 8, 2022 6:59 AM

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Answer 1

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Barney-15E

Level 10

113,566 points

Jan 8, 2022 7:22 AM in response to Winston Churchill

All of the problems you listed are how Gmail works. There are more problems you will find when you use it more.

Gmail is neither IMAP nor POP, though they pretend to emulate them.

Gmail doesn't have folders or mailboxes. It has Labels, and a message can have multiple labels--that's why you see messages in both Inbox and All Mail (Archive). All Mail, by the way, is Gmail's repository to ensure they can monetize your life. When you delete a message, it doesn't really get deleted. All that happens when you delete an email is the label of the folder it is in is removed. Any other labels remain assigned to that message. All messages have the All Mail label assigned from the get-go. They will also have an "inbox" label. If you move a message from the inbox to another mailbox, the Inbox label is removed and the new mailbox name (label) will be assigned. All Mail remains assigned to the message.

You can try checking the Gmail Settings (show all settings), Labels tab. There may be an option to disable All Mail in IMAP. However, I have heard that option was removed for newer accounts.

You can disable the storage of messages in All Mail when you delete in the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. You have to disable Auto-expunge, then you can enable moving the message to the Trash or deleting immediately.

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Answer 2

Jan 8, 2022 7:50 AM in response to Barney-15E

Yes, I was reluctant to choose Gmail, but a few factors combined led me down that path. First, I had a paid-for email server (Rackspace) that used my domain name from another provider. Unfortunately, it started to get too many blacklistings since their accounts used shared servers. I was hoping to move to iCloud when they recently introduced private domains, but more than one of my addresses was associated with an Apple ID, and there was no undoing it. I also had an external drive fail recently, and while it was backed up, it's taken up a time to recover. I figured I'd use the cloud space that came with multiple email addresses when using Google workspace to store these files and not bother replacing the failed drive.

Anyways, thanks for the reply; it all makes sense to me. However, I'm not sure where to look for my Google settings. Do you know where I might look, please?

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

113,566 points

Jan 8, 2022 8:10 AM in response to Winston Churchill

However, I'm not sure where to look for my Google settings. Do you know where I might look, please?

mail.google.com, Gear button on top, right of email page. Clicking the gear will show basic settings, and there is a link to show all settings right at the top of the list.

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Answer 4

Jan 8, 2022 8:42 AM in response to Barney-15E

No options to remove the label so far as I could see. There was an option to enable IMAP, I did wonder what that did, but thought better of just turning it on to see.

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Answer 5

Jan 8, 2022 6:18 PM in response to Winston Churchill

I am also using Mail with gmail and noticed some of the same weirdness. I occasionally go back to the gmail browser interface to clean up. I'm considering switching to iCloud mail.

- Pie Lover

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Mail, GMail and the dreaded archive (all mail) folder.

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