Yosemite Mail still has sync problems with Gmail - any solutions?

Doug,

In reply to your last message. Yes, I am aware that Gmail does have all of the folders that I create in Apple Mail. That is an important feature of Gmail and gives me the opportunity to compare both Apple Mail and Gmail to see that they mirror one another. That brings me to the point as to the reason I cannot use All Mail as a folder in Apple Mail, and it is a problem which started, for me, when Yosemite was installed.

When I use All Mail as a folder in Apple Mail, much of the emails in the Apple Mail folders that I created, disappear. They still appear in Gmail, but can no longer be seen in Apple Mail. As soon as I remove the All Mail folder from Apple Mail, all of the emails reload back into the folders and are exact duplicates of what I have in Gmail. This is the basic problem that Apple Mail has. There is no question in my mind that with the talent at Apple, this situation could be corrected. For me, it did not exist before Yosemite. However, that is an issue that I hope someday Apple takes care of. I like Apple Mail, but cannot use it in the present condition.

Herschel, deleting your Gmail account or disabling it will have the same effect. I recommend removing it completely with the "-" at the bottom of the accounts list. If you ever want to enable it again, you can. Gmail is an IMAP mail account, and as such, by deleting it in any email app, including Apple Mail, you'll have no effect on your email or labels on the Gmail server. You could theoretically have Gmail installed on dozens of IMAP email clients, but realistically having more than four or five of them open simultaneously would have an adverse effect and cause problems with Gmail.

Regarding your Gmail folders residing in Apple Mail, since Apple Mail is an IMAP email client, if Gmail is active in Apple Mail and you were to delete a folder, yes, the corresponding label in Gmail would be removed. You do not want to do that...you want to either remove (recommended) or disable the Gmail account in Apple Mail. This simply stops the Gmail account from being displayed in the Apple Mail interface...nothing will be deleted from Gmail itself.

Regarding your All Mail folder in Gmail (or in Mailplane or Kiwi...same Gmail interfaces exactly) you can not remove the All Mail folder. Google has something pretty special with All Mail, Herschel, which IMHO makes it the king of email (that along with it's unmatched spam filtering). Every message you own in Gmail resides in All Mail, but considering you have nearly infinite storage in Gmail, its not a problem. In fact, it's a great place to look for some message you want to find from ten years ago...or from yesterday. What happens is every message in Gmail in All Mail "and" another label (folder). The word label best describes it because you can have one single message in All Mail, yet apple as many labels as you want to it.

Using labels is explained here - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/118708?hl=en

All Mail is explained here - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6581?hl=en

Archived Messages are explained here - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6576?hl=en

So, in answer to the last sentence, it's not Mailplane or Kiwi that dictate the use of All Mail...it's Gmail itself, and that's all they are displaying, along with their other niceties to go along with the Gmail standard interface. Best way to compare, open Gmail in a browser, then look at it in Mailplane, and then Kiwi. Additionally, any setting changes you make in Gmail (or Mailplane or Kiwi) carry forth to the other apps. Change your default font in one, it's changed in the other two. Mailplane and Kiwi "are" Gmail...just put into a neat Mac desktop app, allowing either to afford you features not available in the Gmail app. Good example is multiple account, contacts, or calendars. In Mailplane you can have a tab for each Gmail account, accounts for Google Calendars, or Google Contacts. You would need many tabs open in a browser to support this and it would be slow. Both apps have comparisons between their features and the Gmail browser app on their respective websites. Mailplane is the most polished now, but also the most expensive. Kiwi is the new kid on the block, but look for some really cool features in the near future.

Larry, you should consider writing a book on this topic. Great stuff!

I forgot to mention that I also have my iCloud mail account, and I assume this will be treated as all other accounts.

I did want to ask if there is any restriction on using my same Login info (Username, email address and PW) when opening Mailplane and Kiwi)?

I know I will have a question or two as I go along doing this, so thanks in advance for helping me out.

Herschel

Herschel, no more books...I've done my share of writing and I'm enjoying being retired from the computing industry. Since I am basically an all-Apple fan boy with the exception of Gmail, I'll explain exactly how I have my email and iCloud life configured. You can take from this whatever you want, but it works perfectly for me. I own an iMac 27 and a MBP, an iPad min 3 and an iPhone 6. This is how I do it.

The only thing I want from Google is Gmail...I don't want their calendar or contacts. But the latter is an issue because I need my contacts in Gmail to be constantly synched with my Apple Contacts so they'll be available in either Mailplane or Kiwi. I use Apple Contacts (obviously turned on to sync with iCloud) on my Macs. So on My iPhone, I use an app called Synclastic ($2.99 with a $0.99 add-on to do auto syncs)...the best $4 I've ever spent.

With this setup, my Apple Contacts are constantly in sync with my other Apple devices via iCloud, so that's not a problem. Synclastic does a sync every few minutes from my iPhone "TO" Gmail...one-way only. So anything I change on any apple device is then changed, added, deleted...whatever, in Gmail. So that means the contacts are always in sync in Mailplane or Kiwi as well. The beauty of Synclastic is that is also syncs the Groups in my Apple Contacts to Gmail. Contacts solved.

I use the Apple Calendar as well, so it syncs via iCloud to all Apple devices and that's it...I have the Google calendar turned off in Gmail as I don't need it. Every device I have already has a calendar, so why would I need Google Calendar. This also means I can use any third party calendar app I want on any Mac device. Though I use Apple Calendar itself on the Macs and Fantastical on the iOS devices.

Gmail supports only Gmail accounts...so you need to check your iCloud mail on an Apple device. I use Apple's default mail app on both iOS devices so my iCloud mail is there, and my iCloud mail (though I rarely use it) is the "only" email account in Apple Mail. Or, you could check it via the iCloud web interface if you also rarely use it, then not have to even open Apple Mail.

Regarding your Gmail login credentials, you use the same with either Mailplane or Kiwi. Like any other third party app when you first them up and add your Gmail username and password, they'll ask for Google's permission to sync and you'll need to authorize this only once.

If you have any questions along the way, just let me know. Rather than hijack this thread with any future questions you might have, send me a friend request on Facebook and we can PM the questions/answers. Or, you can contact me directly on my blog at http://www.retiredgeek.net/, though it's not all Apple-related.

Larry, I also retired from the computing industry and went on to work in Oceanography. Always felt I should have started that about 20 years sooner.

Your help has been invaluable. You are far more knowledgeable with Gmail than I ever want to be. I want something as simple as possible. Technology is moving too fast for me to spend all of my time trying to keep up, So, I just go with the flow. I'll follow your directions as it applies to iCloud. I also work a lot with the PC since I do a lot of work creating DVD's from trips, family, etc. and the software I use is not made for the Mac. I am gradually moving all activities to my Mac. I also have 2 iPad's, 2 iPhones. One of each is for my wife. I used to be on and use Facebook, but I did not use it enough to warrant continuing to "like" and "dislike". However, I can restart its use. I will probably download and install the Mailplane within the next couple of days. I'll let you know how it comes out since I feel you now have a vested interest in it.

Thanks again,

Herschel

You're very welcome...I enjoy helping, but I have too many other things going on in my life to do it here in the forums like some of the absolutely awesome contributors do. Don't bother starting up Facebook again, you can email me on my blog and after that you'll have my email address. The way I have it all setup for email, contacts and calendar is just that...simple. I think you'll benefit from it.

Larry,

When you go into your blog, how do I get to you specifically?

Herschel

Just go to the "Contact Me" page - http://retiredgeek.net/contact-me/ and when I reply it will be from my email.

Just upgraded to El Capitan. The "Activity" window in Mail seems completely different now, and it seems like the repetitive syncing over and over and over isn't happening anymore. Or, if it is, it isn't being reported in Activity Monitor.

Earlier in this thread, I theorized that those of us with large amounts of e-mail (I have over 600,000 messages) are going to have particular problems with Mail, and mailboxes that exceed about 10,000 messages also seem to cause problems. Earlier this year, I made adjustments so that most of my old archives aren't visible to Mail any longer, and cut mailbox sizes down to below 10,000 messages; that seemed to help a fair amount, although Mail still did a lot of work over and over that it didn't need to do. The downside, of course, is that I had to go to my browser for searches of old mail.

I'm going to try (slowly) making my old gmail archives visible to Mac Mail to see if these problems are now really fixed. Keeping my fingers crossed. I'll report back.

Well, I am stunned to be saying this, but it appears to me that mail is FIXED. Finally, after all of these years. All of the problems described in this thread (and others) seem to be gone. Clearly, they re-wrote the **** thing, finally.

Yes, it's only been 12 hours, but it's very clear that something is different under the hood here.

This morning, I allowed Mail to once again have access to the half-million Gmail messages that I had previously hidden from it (see my other posts in this thread for details). One mailbox has 140,000 messages. It's all working beautifully, in a way that I've NEVER seen Mail work before. And, I've been using Mail since it was originally developed. Syncing is quick and painless and happens ONCE. None of this syncing and re-syncing forever. Search goes through my 600,000 messages in seconds (e.g., "from:John subject:discuss" took one second to search 600,000 messages and show me the 44 that met that criteria). Mail is finally working the way it should have worked from Day One.

So, for those of you who have migrated to other apps but still miss Apple Mail to some extent, it's time to take another look...

O ye, of little faith.

I don't blame you. And, while it all might come crashing down at any moment, this looks and feels so different that I'm quite optimistic. Will let you know...

OK, I have five days under my belt now. Mail remains stunningly responsive. Absolutely zero problems. I think this is a winner, but I'm interested to hear others' perspectives as well (particularly those who experienced the issues outlined in this thread).

My perspective (and I never had any issues with Mail & Gmail) is that EC is as good as previous versions, fast and reliable.