Gmail Archive in Apple Mail, impact on storage?

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Gmail Archive in Apple Mail, impact on storage?

Hi - I know in Gmail that the Archive folder is really just a "label" that shows all emails and each email is really stored only once on google's servers, even if those emails also appear in Inbox. Does the same storage behavior apply when IMAP is activated in Apple Mail for gmail? In other words, does enabling Archive in IMAP cause each email to be stored twice on the Mac if it appears both in Inbox and Archive? Thanks

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 27, 2022 8:45 PM

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Answer 1

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steve626

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May 28, 2022 5:21 PM in response to jszrules

All of my GMAIL messages in the In Box also appear in the Archive. But each message is stored only once physically in the Mac if all your GMAIL is being handled with their "IMAP" option. You can verify this by looking in your user Library Folder and then in the Mail folder and you can see the various mailbox folders there and how much space they are taking up.

If you were to make a copy of a message in your GMAIL In Box or in your GMAIL Archive and place that copy to an "On My Mac" local folder (that is not on the GMAIl server), then that message would be stored in your computer twice.

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Gmail Archive in Apple Mail, impact on storage?

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