Apple Mail Question

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Apple Mail Question

We have a personal domain that uses an IMAP email server. We use Apple Mail for our email. We have decided to close the email accounts using our personal domain and use exclusively @gmail and @iCloud emails. We have thousands of email in Apple Mail that were sent to the personal domain addresses.

I have observed that if I delete an email on my iMac it is retained on my iOS devices, however if I delete an email on my iPhone, that email is deleted on my iMac.

What will happen with my iBox and Sent email boxes on my iMac and my iOS devices when I close our personal email. (The personal email is hosted at Rackspace and their site clearly said when I close the account, that is instantaneous and the emails on their servers will be gone.)

iMac 27″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Oct 18, 2022 5:22 AM

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Answer 1

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Twocybers Author

Level 1

26 points

Oct 18, 2022 9:02 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

I called Apple Care and understand the solution for MacOS is the remove the check mark from the "Enabled" box in Apple Mail Preferences. Do not delete the account in System preferences, or else the account's mail boxes will be deleted and that will kill all local copies.

Similarly on iOS devices, do not delete the account. Rather drill down - Settings; Mail; Accounts and select the specific email account. Within the email account locate the green slider switch named "Mail" and turn that off. Again do not click on "Delete Account" at below the on/off switch.

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Answer 2

a brody

Level 10

84,049 points

Oct 18, 2022 8:05 AM in response to Twocybers

IMAP maintains data on the IMAP server in question, as long as you do not specify storage on the device with the Mail software.

Gmail pretty much allows for unlimited email, whereas iCloud Mail is only allowing 5 GB of email and data on Apple's server.

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Answer 3

Oct 18, 2022 8:46 AM in response to Twocybers

Twocybers wrote:

Does Apple Mail by default store email locally?

How do I check if my settings are such that Apple Mail will store a local copy?

It depends on the account. On IMAP accounts (including iCloud and Gmail - although technically Gmail is not quite IMAP), by default messages are synced with the server.

You can, however, easily store messages locally, independently of the server - that is what the mailboxes under "On My Mac" are for. Note that if you move messages from a mailbox pertaining to an IMAP account, to a mailbox that is On My Mac, it will be removed from the server, and then via syncing it will disappear from other devices as well; you may also copy messages, instead of moving, by holding the Option key down when dragging.

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Answer 4

Twocybers Author

Level 1

26 points

Oct 18, 2022 8:26 AM in response to a brody

Does Apple Mail by default store email locally?

How do I check if my settings are such that Apple Mail will store a local copy?

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Answer 5

Oct 18, 2022 8:42 AM in response to a brody

Last time I checked, Gmail had a limit of 15GB; larger than 5GB, but certainly not unlimited.

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