how do i remove archive folder in mail?

Yes, it's a Gmail system folder and cannot be deleted in Mail.

But you can fix it.

Log on to gmail in your browser.

Go to "settings"

Click on "labels"

Find the "all mail" label and uncheck "show in IMAP"

The label/folder will no longer who on your Apple Mail folder list the next time you start Mail.

I am completely lost by this thread. What's all the talk about gmail?! I don't have gmail! I have MacMail, it's grown an Archive folder under the Trash folder, and the Archive folder (which is empty) refuses to delete.

On G+/YouTube, when I go to gMail it asks if I want to create an account and merge it with my G+/YouTube accounts; that means my problem has NOTHING to do with gMail. I've gone onto iCloud to try to delete the Archive folder there, but same problem, it does NOTHING & refuses to go away. The ****** Archive folder does NOT interact with my Inbox, or my Trash, it just sits there, empty and annoying me.

Does anyone at Apple have a real answer to this question?!

I too am extremely frustrated with this feature... which seems to be Google created a folder ,,,,,,,,seen via IMAP that contains copies of all messages whether sent or rcvd. They state that this is good for you on some of their pages, When they rolled out gmail - it was like "You'll never have to delete another email message, ever". Well. what if I want to get rid of stale info, etc? Anyway, recently I went to gmail.com settings and found that the radio button /OPTION/ for not archiving is grayed out. See screen grab. So you can't turn it off if you want to. Further (and I tested this with one of my gmail accounts) if you DO persist in trashing the message in "Archive (All Mail)" folder -- IT GETS RID OF the messages in my INBOX and SENT mail. It's like they are "pre-archived". SO User BEWARE. I Think this is a Google Server issue, not an Apple Mail problem.

GOOGLE: DO NO EVIL! Please.

Choices are grayed out - not functional... WHY?

I had a huge problem deleting emails in All Mails/Archive box. You can not get rid of the box as it's Gmail's default. I tried deleting the email, but moving them to Trash kept duplicating No. of emails in All Mail Archive and I was running out of space in my MacBook (for whatever reason).

That's how I figured it out:

1. You can delete the emails from the All Mail Box within Gmail account (Gmail.com) . But you will LOOSE ALL EMAILS. Yes that happened to me. (Read further as I could have my emails back.)

2. Disable your Gmail Account in your Email App on the Mac. Export the emails to a folder in your Mac.Try deleting the emails inside the All Mail, then Empty the trash, then Enable the account back. So it will not falling in the loop and duplicating number of emails in All Mail box. I have not tried this as I deleted them from Gmail, although I disabled the Gmail on Mac, so it was not refreshed from the main server and I could save my emails.

Here is why I decided to write in here:

I had exported my Gmails to a folder on my Mac. But couldn't retrieve them back to my main Gmail (Gmail.com).

I called Apple support, they referred me to Google. Google told me as these two are competitors, I will NOT be able to retrieve the lost emails. Only way is if they (remote)install a Software on my laptop, and by using that they can use the Back up on Mac to the Main Gmail account, and that would cost me $199!!!!

Thi is not a joke, that's exactly what he told me. Of course I hung up!

What you can do:

You can Import the exported emails back to your Mac Mail.

Once you got the folder in your list, you can open and select emails and move them like any normal email to other folders, including the GMAIL!!!

The 640 is the number of my old/lost email that's back now, plus it's accessible from Google.com without a need to pay a penny!

Remember that Drag n Drop to iCloud folder is always another option to move and share emails.

Good Luck and be safe from the fools!

I had a huge problem deleting emails in All Mails/Archive box. You can not get rid of the box as it's Gmail's default. I tried deleting the email, but moving them to Trash kept duplicating No. of emails in All Mail Archive and I was running out of space in my MacBook (for whatever reason).

That's how I figured it out:

1. You can delete the emails from the All Mail Box within Gmail account (Gmail.com) . But you will LOOSE ALL EMAILS. Yes that happened to me. (Read further as I could have my emails back.)

2. Disable your Gmail Account in your Email App on the Mac. Export the emails to a folder in your Mac.Try deleting the emails inside the All Mail, then Empty the trash, then Enable the account back. So it will not falling in the loop and duplicating number of emails in All Mail box. I have not tried this as I deleted them from Gmail, although I disabled the Gmail on Mac, so it was not refreshed from the main server and I could save my emails.

Here is why I decided to write in here:

I had exported my Gmails to a folder on my Mac. But couldn't retrieve them back to my main Gmail (Gmail.com).

I called Apple support, they referred me to Google. Google told me as these two are competitors, I will NOT be able to retrieve the lost emails. Only way is if they (remote)install a Software on my laptop, and by using that they can use the Back up on Mac to the Main Gmail account, and that would cost me $199!!!!

Thi is not a joke, that's exactly what he told me. Of course I hung up!

What you can do:

You can Import the exported emails back to your Mac Mail.

Once you got the folder in your list, you can open and select emails and move them like any normal email to other folders, including the GMAIL!!!

The 640 is the number of my old/lost email that's back now, plus it's accessible from Google.com without a need to pay a penny!

Remember that Drag n Drop to iCloud folder is always another option to move and share emails.

Good Luck and be safe from the fools!

This worked for me to finally get rid of archived emails. To automatically erase messages: Choose Mail > Preferences, click Accounts, then select an account. Click Mailbox Behaviors, then in the Trash section choose when you want Mail to permanently erase deleted messages. In the option "permanently erase deleted messages when" then change it to when "quitting mail" then achieve folder will be empty. Finally I got rid of my archive messages! Hopefully works for you.

Where is this "annoying folder" located? Is this a Mail folder? If so what happens when you try to delete it?

Bill Donna,

I tried what you suggested, but unfortunately it doesn't work for me: if I uncheck "show in IMAP" Mac Mail doesn't show any incoming email, even though I can see them via the browser on my Gmail account.

If I check the "show in IMAP" box on the Gmail server then emails are delivered to the inbox folder of Mac Mail... and also in the useless "archive" folder. 😠

Is there any other solution?
I'm running Yosemite.

Regards

solomare wrote:

Bill Donna,

I tried what you suggested, but unfortunately it doesn't work for me: if I uncheck "show in IMAP" Mac Mail doesn't show any incoming email, even though I can see them via the browser on my Gmail account.

If I check the "show in IMAP" box on the Gmail server then emails are delivered to the inbox folder of Mac Mail... and also in the useless "archive" folder. 😠

Is there any other solution?
I'm running Yosemite.

Regards

Again, that useless behavior you see is because of how the useless Gmail manages email. It is in both "folders," so Mail shows it in both folders. That's just how Gmail works.

I have seen others report the result you get when disabling All Mail in IMAP. I don't know why it does that for some people, but not all.

There may be a difference in behavior between Google business accounts and plain old individual freeloader accounts. The policy might be set by the business. I do not know anything for a fact. Just thought I'd add this to the thread in case someone comes along who knows. I have both kinds of accounts.

Interestingly all the messages /came back/ into 'Archive' after I had deleted them, and then emptied them from the trash. Some time passed before they came back. I repeated this experiment with a plain gmail account -- and nothing has come back yet after about 2 hours. FYI only.

Incredible! Yes, that answers that. There is no clue that is the case in the "User Interface" for that IMAP setting page on gmail.com. This may be the answer for new accounts and to stop this unwanted behavior, but people should stuill beware of deleting everything in "Archive (All Mail)". It really means it.

Rant: Email has become too complex for its own good. So many people wasting so many hours of their life trying to figure stuff like this out. Thanks Google!

Thanks to Barney-15E!

I followed the two suggestions - unchecked "show in IMAP" and also set the Auto-expunge to "OFF." Now I have zero emails showing up in my Gmail account Mail inbox. I reset the two settings back to the default, sent a test email, and that one email now shows up in my Gmail account Mail inbox. The rest of them are gone. I can still access them via Gmail, but I do like being able to access multiple email accounts in Mail. I'd like to get rid of the emails showing up in the Archive folder and not being able to delete them. Any suggestions? Perhaps I should not have changed both settings? I dislike that Archive folder so much that I'm tempted to just delete all my Gmail accounts from Mail and only use it for my one Apple email account. Thanks for any help you might be able to offer.

The only way to get rid of the Archive folder (actually, it is All Mail in Gmail) is to dump Gmail altogether.

Some people seem to get the same results as you. For me, everything works as I described. All Mail does not show and my deleted emails are actually deleted.

I don't know if anyone has resolved the missing folders anomaly. I imagine you don't see the emails in the Inbox as the Inbox label was removed from the messages. Only the All Mail label remains, so it doesn't show in the inbox.

Try going into Gmail web interface, select a message from All Mail, and mark it with an Inbox label. Then, see if it shows up in Mail's Inbox.

what i've done is: login into gmail, settings, clear the checkbox "Show on IMAP", then, delete my gmail accounts, quit Mail, then add those accounts again from Settings, run Mail and that folder was gone for good!! ✅