Mavericks Mail App and Gmail folders

Sometimes when I move an email from one label (folder) to another, Apple Mail in Mavericks seems to remove the inbox label, and forget to add the new label. This makes the email VANISH from all listings. I'd have to search for that email on gmail.com until I can find it and apply a new label to it.

Upsetting.

I'm still having problems with Mavericks mail since the 10.9.2 upgrade.

First - it crashed while migrating the email database. After finally getting it recovered by deleting data folders, etc I still got to a point where the Inbox for Gmail wouldn't update. Only workaround was to completely erase my Google settings and recreate them.

Now when I try to move an email from inbox to archive by drag and drop, it's not being reflected in the gmail web interface, or on my iPhone mail.

Right now moving to Thunderbird is looking like my only other option. MailPlane is fine, but if I'm going to use that I might as well just use the GMail on the web.

I'm using Mailplane and find it easier to use than via the web. Maybe because I have multiple accounts. But I am not sure exactly why it is easier. I've been trying to get an up-to-date comparison with Mailplane and Gmail via the web, but have been unable to find such a comparison table for Mailplane 3.

Meanwhile back in Mavericks Mail world, one of the students in the class for handicapped people I teach asked why Mail works on his iPad, but Mail doesn't come in all the time on his new Macbook Air.

I had to explain that basically Apple messed up Mail when it "upgraded" to Mavericks. It's been like what? 5 months now? I can't believe what a mess Apple made of mail.

Again I re-iterate - it was working just fine before Mavericks. So it has to be something Apple broke. I don't know why they can't fix it.

doug

I really hope they get the rest of the kinks ironed out in Mavericks mail. Using Thunderbird makes me feel a little dirty... 😉

It is just too bad that Google's implimentation of IMAP and folders ***** so bad. They really are not folders, but rather labels. So your entire email box is just a large flat file that takes an application set up to read those labels and interpret them as labels.

Everyone is blaming Apple, but if you look at Thunderbird, Outlook, etc, they all are doing that same interpretation of labels to come up with the folder structure.

Then you're stuck with this other folder called [Gmail] that has the basic folders you see with the web interface, but really are more like "smart folders" in that they are just custom filters for the labels.

Gmail has become this large beomoth of a web application and Google only cares about one thing, it looks good in a web browser.

I think the reason everybody is blaming Apple (and why I do to) is because I used Apple Mail for years and it worked fine with Gmail until the very day Mavericks came out. Then with the Mavericks upgrade it stopped working well. Gmail didn't change. Apple's Mail changed. So naturally it is Apple's fault. They took something that was working and broke it.

doug

I guess I've always seen the folder issues. This machine I'm working on now is still back at Mountain Lion. My laptop is Mavricks and both do the same thing with the folders and messages.

I believe there are 2 "standards" (mbox and maildir) of how to handle IMAP messages and folders. Gmail follows neither of them.

Same for me. Gmail has never worked well over years and that has not changed before and after Mavericks for me on several Macs. However, I am on non-standard settings, which I have somhow managed to get working, I don't use this " All Mail" folder at all. The basics work with this settings, which is good enough for me. Don't need all those Google labels, I do my own labelling within Mail. I am getting my mail that is the main thing. That part works.

I guess to sort this out is more than a Mavericks Gmail issue, it involves all those non-standard settings and labels.

As those are effectively handled variably (knowingly ot unkowingly) by different users this might get complex. It appears to work well for some, but not for others. I don't know why, but is hard to offer a standard solution for a non-standard. Either you agree on a standard protocoll like IMAP or you don't. Also, gmail did repeatedly change the labelling process as far as I can tell.

Doug Lerner2 wrote:

Apple's Mail changed. So naturally it is Apple's fault. They took something that was working and broke it.

doug

Exactly. That's why *I* am angry. It was working and GMail didn't change. Yea I get that GMail IMAP isn't "real" iMAP... but it works reasonably well with other clients and works perfectly with iOS mail.

Apple needs to get their act together on this.

How would you explain that they didn't break it for others? What is the difference here?

John Ulmschneider wrote:

The solution that has emerged from several posts and threads -- making All Mail visible in Gmail, then waiting for the mail to reload on Mail -- seems to work and has cleared up my problems.

There is one annoying consequence of the fix. When I use the Mail search box, it finds messages which match search criteria that are filed in folders, as it should. BUT, it gives their location only as "Archive -- (account name) All Mail". Search no longer gives the folder name! I guess that's because the mail message has two labels -- "All Mail" and "folder name" -- but it's frustrating. I can access a found message but I don't know where I filed it, unless by some miracle I remember its folder name. The Search results only list "All Mail" as the location.

If anyone knows of a way to have Search results show the folder in which a found message resides, I'd love to hear of it.

John, I was wondering if you ever found a solution for the search problem. I have the same problem and it is really annoying. I have updated to 10.9.2 and the problem persists. There is not much information on forums and such in regards to this matter. All my search results have five possible folder location outcomes: Inbox, Sent, Junk, Draft, and the annoying Archive - "MyAccount" (All Mail). I would be grateful if you could post your solution if you have found one. Thank You...

I have All Mail turned off since 10.9.1 and my search works fine. You will have to allow a day or two of Internet connected handshaking and rebuilding of indexes after turning All Mail off for things to settle down and work properly.

That is certainly an option. I did try this but maybe was not patient enough to hold on for two days and it kind of conflicted with the advice that was being posted that with the update to 10.9.1 it was better to turn All Mail back on, but Thank You!!

Is there anyone that has been able to configure while maintaining the All Mail "on", so I still have access to unlabeled archived messages from the mail app.

Well I'm going to try that again.. and the reason I'm trying again is because Mail in 10.9.2 stalled out on me again.

I might just dump Mail.app and go to Thunderbird - it's working with Gmail and Me.com and whatever else I can throw at it without a hitch.

It's a shame.. I really like apple Mail - or at least I did.. :-/

chrisreilly wrote:

For me, incredibly, OS X 10.9.2 does not fix anything in terms of syncing the Gmail Web inbox. If I read or archive an e-mail at gmail.com or elsewhere, Mail.app still doesn't reflect that action. In other words, the e-mail still sits in the Mail.app inbox, marked as unread. How could this be? I've installed and then reinstalled the update, rebuilt the mailboxes, trashed the Mail folder in Library, done everything and still it doesn't sync. None of my Gmail settings or Mail.app settings is unorthodox. I have no "Google" specific mailboxes enabled in IMAP. "All Mail" is enabled in Gmail's settings and shows up in Mail.app in "Archive" under MAILBOXES. There's got to be a reason why 10.9.2 seems to have fixed things for the majority of users but not for me. Selecting Synchronize All Accounts under the menu item Mailbox or Get All New Mail does absolutely nothing to force a sync either. Same as in all previous Mavericks versions.

Post the settings you are using, leave out any personal identifiers (address etc)