"On My Mac" Gmail Folders--Impossible to delete?

Could you tell me how to get the Show in IMAP column to appear? I'm on the Labels tab in gmail settings, but the Show in IMAP column isn't there. Would really like to get rid of Important folder in the Mail app on my iMac.

Thanks in advance.

Figured this out. Under Forwarding and POP/IMAP, I had selected "Enable IMAP," but had not clicked on Save Changes at the bottom of the window. After doing that, the "Show in IMAP" column appears under the Labels tab.

Those folders are GMail's IMAP folders. You clearly don't have an understanding of IMAP and GMail's settings.

Go to gmail's website and click on the settings. Go to manage labels. From the Labels tab, you can delete any folders at the bottom of the window that you create. In the top section of the window, you can choose what mailboxes you want shown in IMAP with the column to show in IMAP. Uncheck all you do not wish to see in Mail.

The All Mail folder is a mailbox that points to messages no matter what mailbox it's in. You can bypass the deleted items folder and send messages straight to the trash by changing settings for deleting messages accounts tab or maybe the forwarding tab.

Also, looking at the mailboxes under the gmail imap folder, you have not synced any of the mailboxes to Mail's main mailboxes. That means the gmail mailboxes under the main mailboxes (sent, trash, drafts, & junk) are local mailboxes on the Mac.

I suggest you read the gmail's help to get a better understanding of how gmail functions and the different settings to make.

Didn't mean for that to be condesending or ugly in any kind of way. Just trying to point you in the right direction.

It's just clear that this is new to you.

I gave you specifics on stopping the mailboxes from showing in Mail. Read gmail's help to better understand how it works and I will be willing to help you with any questions that you don't understand.

Delete the folder you don't want in the Web based Gmail system. They will be gone from your Mac.

This is how you will remove or not show the extra mailboxes in Mail under the gmail folder.

At the gmail website, check the box for just the folders you want last column (Show in IMAP- meaning what will be listed under gmail in the sidebar). The second column (Show in Label List) is what you see at the gmail site. You can show or hide folders you want there.

The bottom portion of this window (not shown) is for mailboxes you create at the gmail site besides the default listed in the top part. Unless you use any, you can delete all of them.

Your main goal from you post is to remove duplicate messages from Mail. Since all of you IMAP mailboxes are listed under the gmail imap account folder, that means none are mapped to the main mailbox (except inbox which is done by default and is why it doesn't appear under the gmail folder). That means the rest of the folders under Mail's main mailboxes are local folders. So moving messages from the inbox to the trash in mail creates a local copy in mail's trash, and a copy in gmail's imap deleted items folder. You can empyt the trash on the mac and it will not affect the message in the imap folder.

Here's where gmail is confusing. The first deletion in gmail's trash (under the gmail folder) moves the message to the deleted items folder. Deleting it again moves it to the trash. The third deletion should get rid of it.

You can choose to leave it as is and deal only with the IMAP inbox on you computer and not show any other imap folders in IMAP. That means you will have to go to the gmail site from time to time to clear out the messages there.

Here's what I suggest to make gmail act more like what you mac's main mailboxes will do and will sync at the site. You need to map the Sent Mail from the gmail folder to Mail's main Sent mailbox. To do this, select the Sent Mail under gmail's folder and highlight it. Go to Mailboxes in the menu and select Use This Mailbox for and choose Sent. This will move the Sent Mail mailbox from the gmail folder to Mail's Sent mailbox. If you have a local mailbox for that account already, it will push it out of the main to the sidebar under ON My Mac (you can check any messages in it, move or delete them, and also then delete the local mailbox).

You should repeat the process for the Trash mailbox also. I do not suggest doing that for drafts or Spam.

Once that's done, change these settings at the gmail site as per the illustration below. I think this is under the Accounts tab.

After making these changes, go back to Mail's preferences under the Accounts tab. Select mailbox behavior.

Choose these settings (change your time limited to your desired):

If you do this correctly, this should sync to the website and you shouldn't have duplicate messages anymore.

There is one more option you can set. In the illustration below, you can select to not keep any copies of messages locally for offline viewing. Problem is you will have to be online to view them and I don't know how slow that might be.

Check Google settings to see if the "SHOW IN IMAP" is checked. That makes it show up in AppleMail.