Level 2

222 points

Gmail ... IMAP ... Mac Mail.app ... Mavericks ... SOLUTION -1

hi all,

hopefully this will give you enuff info to figure out what to do (if anything), but i urge you to read thru the links below to see if you are experiencing the same issues or not, & if so, what to do about them.

THE BACKGROUND INFO:

i've been using the Mac's Mail.app pretty exclusively since its inception, and with Gmail's IMAP option since mid-2009. the settings have always stayed & worked well...

• on Gmail.com > Settings > Forwarding & POP/IMAP >

- IMAP Enabled

- Auto-Expunge Off

- Move Deleted Messages to the Trash

- Folder Size Not Limited

• also on Gmail.com > Settings > Labels >

- Only the Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Spam, & Trash System Labels CHECKED to "Show in IMAP"

• then in the Mail.app > Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors >

- i had everything CHECKED & all the dropdown options set to "One Month Old"

--note: a year or so ago, i had to UNcheck the option to Store Drafts on server due to a hideous multiplication of draft messages showing up in the Trash

• also in Mail.app > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced >

- the IMAP Path Prefix was always "[Gmail]" to allow folders to show properly in the Mail.app

• and lastly in Mail.app >

- made sure the Sent, Drafts, Spam, & Trash folders/labels were properly mapped via the Mailbox menu > "Use This Mailbox For" option

...and i've always kept 'local' mailbox folders for archiving old emails in the "On My Mac" section in addition to keeping more current emails for reference in the "Gmail" section.

THE INITIAL PROBLEM:

after upgrading my Mac to Mavericks OS 10.9, i started noticing that any email i would delete or move from my inbox kept re-appearing in my inbox after changing views (like going to another mailbox then back to the inbox).

of course this drove my OCD crazy, & thus began the research. i've read a LOT about this issue from official sources to user discussions and have pieced together a procedure that seems to be working (for the most part) for me.

THE RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:

a lot of people, tek/industry people, & blogs are pointing to these webpages as good summaries of issues & fixes (yes, there are SO many more, but i personally found these to be the most helpful in my quest)...

http://tidbits.com/article/14219

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/10/mavericks-issues-and-fixes/?viewall=true

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1222267

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/making-gmail-and-os-x-mavericks-mail-play -well-together

THE DISCLAIMER:

of course, if you aren't greatly affected by the Mail/Gmail wonkiness, then it might be worth waiting another week or two (or 3 or 4...) & keep your eyes on further reports from these sites (links above or others you may like better) in case Apple &/or Google pushes an update to remedy the situation. likewise, if you do make these changes, it would still be a good idea (imho) to keep up'to'date in case such pushes do come out & affect these changes too. ugh ;-)

THE OUTCOME:

the below process, for me, has been SUCCESSFUL in every aspect except one...

THE LAST PROBLEM:

whenever i move a message from the gmail inbox (or any other gmail imap folder/label) to a local folder in the "On My Mac" section, it moves it just fine, but then it keeps a copy in the gmail "All Mail" folder/label, when i would want it deleted from gmail.

unlike when i "delete" a message, where gmail appropriately moves that message to the trash box, in this situation it simply strips the message of "any" label, and thusly it stays in the All Mail. so if anybody can amend this with a fix for that, we should be all set :-)

but aside from that last issue, the below procedure has brought back my Mail.app program to use Gmail as "I" believe it normally should work, and has always worked pre-Mavericks.

THE PROCEDURE (assuming all your settings are set like mine were as listed above):

go to gmail.com in Safari (or other web browser) > Log in > Settings > Labels > and check "Show in IMAP" for the "All Mail" system label (which was previously a no-no, but now a yes-yes).
also on that same page, you will need to UNcheck the "Show in IMAP" option for Drafts. and then slide over and for BOTH the Drafts & Spam labels, click the "show if unread" options.
then go to each & every one of your custom "Labels" (you know them as Mailbox Folders). they will all start with "[Gmail]/foldername". click on each and remove the "[Gmail]/" leaving ONLY your custom folder name.
once done, click on your Inbox to get you out of the settings area.
now you will need to go thru ALL of your folders/labels (i know... big ugh!) to fix the labels attached to all the emails inside them ;-)
click a folder/label to reveal all the emails inside it.
click the checkbox in the header row of buttons/options that will cause all emails on that page to be selected/checked.
then, IF you have more emails than what fits on that page (in other words, if you have more than one page of emails in this folder as indicated by the "1-###" and page arrow buttons at the top right), then you will see a new small row that sits above the list of emails that says "All ### conversations on this page are selected. Select all ### conversations in "Folder/Label Name" - you WILL NEED TO CLICK this text link!!!
once you have, the sentence will change to "All ### conversations in "FolderName" are selected" - do NOT click the "Clear selection" link next to that.
next, click on the "Label As..." button in the header row of button/options - the icon looks like a price tag of sorts.
then in the resulting popup box that lists all your folders/labels, you will want to make sure ALL checkboxes are UNchecked EXCEPT the single folder/label that these emails are in. note: some of them may or may not have dashes instead of checkmarks in the boxes - you will need to click it to check it and then click it again to get it UNchecked & UNdashed.
after you've got only the one label checked that should be checked, then click the APPLY word at the bottom of that little popup box. note: if all the selected emails are labled correctly, then you won't see the "Apply" option & you can simply move on to the next folder.
if you get a dialog confirmation box pop up asking if you are sure you want to continue... click OK.
then WAIT! this may take a while depending on how many emails it's affecting and how fast/reliable your internet speed/connection is. when you see the "Loading..." notification at the very top of the page change to "All conversations have been removed from (and it lists them all)", then you can move on & do that same procedure (steps 5-13) to fix another folder/label.
WHEN DONE WITH ALL THAT, you can exit your browser.
now go to the Mail.app > Mail menu > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > and remove the "[Gmail]" text from the "IMAP Path Prefix" field.
then go to the Mail.app > Mail menu > Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors tab and if the Store Drafts on Server option is checked, UNcheck it.
then close the Mail.app Preferences window to get the option to SAVE that change!
now go to the Mailbox Menu > Synchronize > Gmail, in case it hasn't started doing that on its own.
then open the Window Menu > Activity, so you can see when it's done synchronizing. this may take a while if you've got a lot of mail. according to some, it took a day! so, just kick back & leave it alone till then.

THE END FOR NOW:

hopefully this helps other folks that were setup like me & want to keep it working that way. and yeah, again, if anybody knows how to fix the last problem described above, please let us know.

.peace.:.jason.

Posted on Nov 5, 2013 10:11 PM

49 replies

gdepena

Level 1

1 points

Nov 12, 2013 11:11 PM in response to syberknight

Syber...

If you read the article they've updated it for Maverics!

Also if you read this article you'll see that it just takes time... The new Mail app has to download every message again and it adds a label so it works with Gmail labels. You need to enable all mail and leave the mail up open for 4 days or so. My email is finally working... Although still downloading a few old mails here and there...

http://tidbits.com/article/14219

Best,

-G

Nov 13, 2013 12:35 AM in response to syberknight

Jason,

As I'm using Mailbox app on my iPad and iPhone and I can't turned All Mail/Show in IMAP off so I can't test your solution. I would really like Apple to fix it without any tricks as this is the only application keeping the inbox out of sync. All other (Airmail, Gmail on web, Mailbox on iPad/iPhone, Mail.app on iPad/iPhone) can read it properly except Mail.app on my Mac.

adamyh

Level 1

1 points

Nov 22, 2013 1:16 PM in response to syberknight

I had an odd situation with Mavericks Mail. On Mountain Lion (and versions going back to Leopard), I have had Mail connect to Mac email IMAP as well as Gmail IMAP. Majority of my mail folders will reside on Gmail for achiving purposes. Mail rules will filter all new emails and reroute the emails appropriately.

On Mavericks the following happened:

- After the upgrade of Mavericks I did as the article cited suggested by turning on All Mail to be visible in IMAP in Gmail

- That took a long time to sync up to my Mail client

- for some reason most of the mail messages ended up in Archive and the mail rules were no longer working

- I accidently deleted the messages in Archive and that ended up deleting all the messages from All Mail and I had lost all my emails. I did not notice until a week later and started to panic.

- Time Machine to the rescue - I managed to restore most of my messages back to the local mail store

- I tried the quick and easy way which was to have Mail just run the rules on the messages

- Nothing happened - when looking at Mail Activity window - there wasn't even an attempt to access the Gmail server

- I checked all the settings in Gmail and everything was as it should be

FIX

- I exited Mail

- I went into System Preferences --> Accounts and removed the Google Mail instances I had there.

- It asked if I was sure and I selected Yes/OK

- I started Mail to make sure and nothing was there and exited

- I added Gmail back to the Accounts

- I started Mail again and then the mail rules started to work again (Yipee!).

One thing I'd like to say - there are still some issues between Mail and Gmail - I am considering moving my folders to iCloud to avoid the frustration - the only issue being storage which is free on Gmail. Here's to hoping that 10.9.1 fixes all this. Plus the speed at which these mail rules are being run in Mavericks is a lot slower than Mountain Lion on the same machine (I am using a Late 2012 Mac Mini with 16gb of RAM - high end spec). So can't think it is trying to save battery or power or something like that. Something does feel a bit off about it. At the end it does the job albeit slowly.

wildeco

Level 1

9 points

Nov 23, 2013 4:23 PM in response to syberknight

I am replying to

This solved my question by syberknight on Nov 12, 2013 10:51 PM

I have been struggling with Gmail and Mavericks for weeks as well. Thanks for your detailed solution and screenshots. Hopefully you will have some suggestions for what I am wanting to do.

I am going through now and changing my sent mail, all mail, spam, and drafts, labels as you directed. Where I get confused is trash and archive. The way I did it before and the way I would like to continue to do is I created a label in Gmail called deleting messages. In Gmail I hid the trash label and unchecked show trash in imap as well. Then over in Apple mail selected my deleted messages label/folder and mapped apple mail to use that folder for trash.(Use this mailbox for trash). My goal was I never really wanted to delete anything. When you delete/trash something Gmail holds it for 30 days and then permanently delete it. The whole trash versus archive was just too confusing for me. In Apple Mail under mailbox behaviors I selected for sent messages, drafts, and trash to never delete. I was very happy with this solution. Basically when I deleted something in Apple Mail it put it in my special deleted messages folder which I mapped to the trash in Apple mail and all of my trash/deleted messages never actually got deleted. I was basically archiving all of my trash. It also was much easier to do it this way for my employees. I do not want for me or my employees to be able to delete anything. This away when we pushed delete it was actually archiving it. I tried doing it this way and it does not work. Now when I delete something it puts it and the Gmail trash. Even though I have the Gmail trash hidden and unchecked. Any ideas on how to accomplish what I'm after? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Johnny Wilde

wildeco

Level 1

9 points

Nov 24, 2013 6:39 PM in response to syberknight

Quick question. Sounds like I can meet Gmail and Mavericks work together thanks to you. I'm just going to have to retrain myself and my employees to archive everything instead of deleting if I truly never want to really delete anything.

The problem. I set everything up just as you stated but I do not have a archive label/folder? You wrote"also note, Mac Mail.app creates a label in gmail called "[Imap]/Archive" that it puts all the messages i click the Archive button in the toolbar for. it's still called just 'Archive' in Mail, so, i can live with that."

I customized my toolbar and added the archive button. When I highlight a message in Apple Mail and click archive it goes out my inbox but I don't not sure where it actually goes to?? I cannot find it? Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to write all of that up with all of the screenshots!!

Johnny Wilde

Nov 26, 2013 9:10 PM in response to syberknight

Dear Steve,

When Grama and Grandpa were around they'd be able to fix these things easily. Now... the Apple just doesn't work as well as it used to, apparently. If you read all this advice on how to fix a simple email problem...created by Apple, wouldn't you be embarassed? I thought so....

Now I've got to go back and get my PHD in Apple Operating Systems to get my iMac and Macbook Pro running again.... poor Grandma and grandpa.. theyre just out to luck nowadays....

Pete

Dec 3, 2013 4:09 PM in response to syberknight

Hello syberknight -

OS X Mavericks 10.9 I use Gmail and Apple Mail 7.0. I created over two dozen labels a.k.a folders in Gmail account prior to using Apple Mail. When I open Safari web browser and log into Gmail. I see the saved email messages that I have manually moved from the inbox into the various labels that I created. When I close the browser, open Apple Mail, the same labels have been download to Apple Mail client without any problem. However, the email messages are missing!

With Apple Mail client open, I highlight the label with missing email messages, select from the Mailbox menu item at the top of the screen and choose rebuild folder, no success. I have also selected synchronize Google, no success. I've tried get new mail, no success.

I have contacted Apple support and an awesome technician Timmy help me and it was discovered that Gmail is at the root of the problem. They created a brand new user profile on my Mac ProBook, created a brand new Apple Mail / Gmail account using my same Gmail account. All the labels appeared but once again the email messages inside them are missing. They suggested to contact Google at this point. I created a discussion on Google groups, Gmail and the one person who has responded to me it is apparent they do not have or use Apple Mail. Timmy called me back after a week asking me about my progress with Google, impressive. I can’t even get in touch with Google and Apple is calling me, I’m so ready to get an Apple ID mail.

This occurred over four months ago, long before I upgraded to OS X Mavericks. I have been researching this and cannot find a solution on Google. My Gmail, forwarding and POP/IMAP account settings are: enable IMAP, Auto-Expunge off - Wait for the client to update the server, Archive the message (default), and Do not limit the number of messages in an IMAP folder (default). I verified my Gmail account settings, Labels, all labels and messages are set to "show" and "show IMAP" is checked for each label that I created.

The only messages that are displayed or visible is when I have my Gmail account open in the Safari web browser. Changing the conversation view separated one specific message that I had sent and received a reply on that was still in the in box when viewing it in Gmail utilizing Safari web browser.

When I opened the Apple Mail client, the messages in the various labels I created did not display. The messages were not in my in box either. In the mail client, I opened "mail activity" window, highlighted a specific label, selected synchronize Google. In the activity window it said it was downloading 35 of 35 messages, however in the label and in the in box there were no new messages. I checked other labels to see if there were newer messages to be seen there were not any.

Apple Mail 7.0

Account Information: enable this account is checked, incoming mail server is imap.gmail.com, outgoing mail server (SMTP) Gmail, use only this server is checked.

Mailbox Behaviors: Drafts, store draft messages on server is checked. Sent, store sent messages on server is checked, Delete sent messages when, Never is selected. Junk, store junk messages on the server is checked, delete junk messages when, Never is selected. Trash, both “move deleted messages to the trash mailbox” and “store deleted messages on the server” is checked but greyed out. Permanently erase deleted messages when, Never is selected.

Advanced: All three are checked, however “compact mailboxes automatically” is greyed out. IMAP Path Prefix is blank, nothing typed at all. Port 993, Use SSL is checked. Authentication password is selected. Use IDLE command if server supports it is checked.

I have read your posts on similar issue have you come across anything like this? Do you or anyone reading this have suggestions how I can push/download/save/etc. my Gmail saved emails to my Mac? After I get my messages out of the labels in Gmail, I intend to move them Apple Mail, “On my mac” folders I have created and either terminate my Gmail account. But what I most likely will end up doing is immediately move messages from the Gmail in box to the “On my mac” folders. Forwarding the messages to myself is not an option, there is too many of them. Just so that there isn’t any confusion, I don’t wish to utilize the Gmail archive feature.

Thanks,

Steve

CPC35

Level 1

0 points

Dec 3, 2013 9:18 PM in response to syberknight

hi syberknight,

any idea why some options in slide/image 5 are highlighted and some are not? i.e. I want to uncheck the boxes by trash but not allowed to do so....any ideas how to gain access?

User uploaded file

my settings between macmail and gmail are messed up. I want all deleted messages in macmail to be archieved. thus unselecting the option/box "move deleted to the trash" (i believe the default is to achieve)...but can't. the options selected inside the gmail settings page is to autoexpunge on and archieve the message when deleted (default)...they don't match! any ideas here on how to get them to match and or how to unselect options from mac mail? (your slide 5)

User uploaded file

Dec 4, 2013 12:49 AM in response to stevefromdewitt

Hi Steve ... Not to understate the obvious, but assuming you are using an IMAP configuration, which it appears to be because your messages are all filed correctly in Gmail. Two things come to mind.

First, if Apple mail is set to POP then only the in no in Apple mail will be populated. If apple mail is set to IMAP then I'd suggest deleting the apple mail account and then recreating it.

Dean

Dec 4, 2013 4:22 AM in response to stevefromdewitt

Steve,

It is very nice that people from Apple contacted you but the way how they blamed Google is not good. I have multiple mail clients on my Mac, iPhone and iPad and the only client which has the problem with Gmail is Mail.app 7.0. And this is not the only Mac in my house (I have 4 of them), all other Macs have the same problem after the Mavericks upgrade. So, Apple has the move, not Google. Google didn't change anything but Apple did.

Dec 4, 2013 2:56 PM in response to Dean Suhr

Dean Suhr - Both my Apple Mail and Gmail are set to enable IMAP. Nothing for POP is checked. Thx

Dec 4, 2013 2:57 PM in response to virtualAThome

VirtualAThome - I mentioned in the begining of my post that I've been having this problem for months now. Long before I migrated to OS X Mavericks 10.9. However, I do see the point you're making. Thx

mailjeh

Level 1

9 points

Dec 8, 2013 4:03 PM in response to wildeco

For me the Archive Button just removes all labels and puts the item into the All Mail folder–which I don't sync. Syncing All Mail will just double up the amount of stuff held in your Library folder.

I use the IMAP prefix [Gmail] this gives a better folder layout in Mail.

Configure Gmail to show only Inbox, Bin/Trash and Sent Items in IMAP then restart Apple Mail and it will use them as intended.

Mavericks and Google Apps Email work great together, if you set it up correctly, everything just works:

Creating folders/editing folder names in Apple Mail will create a new label/update the label name in Google Webmail
Items sent using another device (iPhone) will appear immediately in Apple Mail’s Sent Items and in the same folder as items sent via Apple Mail.
An Archive button on the Apple Mail Menu Bar will remove items from the Inbox and leave them in All Mail.
Deleting messages will move them to the Trash/Bin - Google will delete them after 30 days.
Moving items to a local Mailbox on the Mac will remove them from Google Mail - hold the Alt key to keep a copy.

Dec 8, 2013 7:03 PM in response to syberknight

OK, everything was working (poorly with a lot of "phantom" messages appearing and disappearing, but eventually Mail would sync and I could still send and receive email) but now it has completely stopped. It's almost like someone unplugged the internet (before you ask: yes, I have internet--two other nonGmail IMAP accounts are still working in Mail).

Has anything happened to gmail in the last 24 hours?

Dec 10, 2013 11:19 PM in response to and_scene

I have the same problem - again in the past 24 hours.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Gmail ... IMAP ... Mac Mail.app ... Mavericks ... SOLUTION -1