Can I delete the emails from my Mail app without deleting them from my Gmail account?

If you delete the individual emails from the Mail app, this WILL delete the emails from the Gmail server because Gmail is an IMAP account (this means whatever you do in Mail will be reflected on the Gmail website).

If you are wanting to just remove your Gmail account from the Mail application completely and use Safari to check your email (which is what I do too because the amount of email can get out of hand especially on a MacBook Air), you can try removing it from the the Mail settings. Removing it from the Mail preferences will not delete the email off of the Gmail website, but it should remove it from your computer.

Try these steps:

1. Go to the Mail menu and click on Preferences.
2. Click on the account tab.
3. Highlight your Gmail account in the white box on the left.
4. Click on the minus sign at the bottom of the box.

You might want to quit Mail and restart the computer before you check the size again.

I hope this helps!

Thanks for the answer, I've done this, but I have a feeling the mail is still lingering on my macbook. ie it has not been deleted. Is there a way to check say a folder and see if it has been?

I wish there was just a way to hit 'delete downloaded mail' without effecting the server...