gMail

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=180188

That's just the way it works with IMAP email services.

( More about IMAP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imap )

Basically, the folders you describe are the actual folders of Gmail on the internet.

I had the same issue two years ago, but after a long time of searching and trying, I think I have found perfection.

The first steps will link your Gmail folders on the internet with your local "Sent", "Trash", etc. mail boxes and may prevent synchronising issues. It makes them also disappear out of the separate list:

1) Select the "Sent Mail" folder out of the separate Gmail box you describe

2) Then go to: the menubar and choose the menu "Mailbox" > "Use this mailbox for" > "Sent"

3) Select the "Spam" folder out of the separate Gmail box you describe

4) Then go to: the menubar and choose the menu "Mailbox" > "Use this mailbox for" > "Junk"

5) Select the "Trash" folder out of the separate Gmail box you describe

6) Then go to: the menubar and choose the menu "Mailbox" > "Use this mailbox for" > "Trash"

7) Select the "Sent Mail" folder out of the separate Gmail box you describe

8) Then go to: the menubar and choose the menu "Drafts" > "Use this mailbox for" > "Concepts"

The following steps will make sure that the other folders still in the separate Gmail box, will disappear from the Mail application:

9) Go to and login in your Gmail account on the internet.

10) Click the wheel in the right above corner in Gmail to go to the Gmail settings.

11) In settings, choose "Labels"

12) Deselect everything in the "Show in IMAP"-section, except "Inbox", "Sent mail", "Drafts", "Spam" and "Trash".

13) Save the settings if necessary and logout

14) Go to the Mail preferences in the Apple Mail applications, go to "Accounts" and select your Gmail-account

15) Select the tab "Mailbox behaviors"

16) Switch on "Store sent messages on the server", "Store junk messages on the server", "Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox" and "Store deleted messages on the server".

17) Go to the "Advaced" tab

The following step will make the strange white Gmail folder disappear:

18) Enter exactly the following (or just copy it from here) in the IMAP Path Prefix: [Gmail]

And now, to finish it up:

19) Close the preferences panel and save it if it asks.

20) Quit Mail by choosing "Mail" in the menubar and then "Quit Mail".

21) Relaunch Mail and after a few moments the dreaded separate Gmail box should disappear

If somehow folders like "Sent" or "Trash", etc. reappear in the separate Gmail box, repeat the appropriate steps 1 to 8 I described here above. In the end, you should prevail 😉

In respect to the Drafts folder I have the following remark. The standard setting for a Gmail account in "Mailbox Behaviors" in the Mail preference panel is to store drafts on the server. However and unlike Yahoo! or another service, Gmail causes problems when composing a large email with photos for example. When you compose an email in Mail, your Gmail account will initiate an uploading of your draft to the Gmail servers every 30 to 60 seconds. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to upload with large emails. Another problem is that Gmail will remember every single time it wanted to upload something. If you are composing an email of 8 megabytes for example, and that let us say for 10 minutes, Gmail will remember to upload your message 10 to 20 times.

And it will continue to upload until it has done ALL of its work, even when you quit and relaunch Mail.

Unfortunately Gmail doesn't let you switch off this autosave behavior.

For more information of how to prevent this I responded here in this discussion:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3452925?answerId=16599207022#16599207022

If you have any further questions, feel free to post them.

If you're interested, these are my Gmail Mailbox Behavior settings:

(It has worked for me almost two years now without problems)

Forgot something: if during the whole process, Mail creates some folder from itself like "Deleted messages (recovered)" or something, you can do the following:

Drag the messages out of the folder and put them in the relevant mail box. Then, delete the folder.

I'm not entirely certain, but it could be a problem. Maybe you will not be able to see your spam mail then.

That aside, the reason why you could not do steps 3 and 4 is because I assume you have not set the Mail preferences to move spam mail to a spam mailbox.

To be able to do steps 3 and 4, you need to do the following:

1) Go to gmail.com, login, go to settings, labels, and check "Show in IMAP" for Spam.

2) Logout from gmail.com

3) Launch Mail or quit and relaunch Mail if it was running

4) Go to Mail preferences, then go to the tab "Junk Mail"

5) Make sure "Enable junk mail filtering is on"

6) Select "Move to the Junk mailbox" in the radio buttons and confirm.

7) Close the Mail preferences

8) Do steps 3 and 4 of my first post

9) Quit and relaunch Mail just to be certain

You could also leave it like you described in the post above, but I don't know whether you would receive all your email (spam).

For more info, a screen shot of my "Junk Mail" preference tab:

This setup seems to work well. The only thing is that when I do this...

The following step will make the strange white Gmail folder disappear:

18) Enter exactly the following (or just copy it from here) in the IMAP Path Prefix: [Gmail]

... then all of my gmail folders disappear — not just the white one. Did I miss something?

Hi!

See my reply in this discussion if the folders you refer to were created by yourself and you wish to keep them visible:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3454798?answerId=16609690022#16609690022

If not, let me know 😉

One additional comment: remove the IMAP Path Prefix [Gmail] in the Mail preferences before you do the steps I described in the linked post. Else, you couldn't do those steps.

I had the same issue. my problem was it was due to 2-step authentication. Here is how I fixed mine:

enter your gmail via the web

click on account setting

click on using 2-step authentication

click on Manage application-specific passwords

click onStep 1 of 2: Generate new application-specific password

insert ie. mail5

generate password.

Grab this password and use it to setup a new gmail account in system preferences, mail/contacts/calendars and you should be sorted.

Are you facing some issues with GMail on your Client/Mobile devices ? I had this issue during a few days and the main error message was: “Cannot Get Mail The user name or password is incorrect” or something referred to the imap and smtp server with wrong username and password.

This problem will cause effects on your mobile devices or e-mail client tools. The WebMail – mail.gmail.com will continue to work.

I've published the complete reference at:

http://www.clebervisconti.net/2011/12/how-to-solve-gmail-cannot-get-mail-the-use r-name-or-password-is-incorrect/

Tks, CTV

that worked for me! that's so cool. I wonder why all of a sudden, this happened? just glad it works!

Thanks,

Bob