How do I stop Mail app downloading tens of thousands of emails from my gmail account?

What are you talking about? The fact that apple mail keeps a local copy of all the messages in the IMAP server HAVE NOTHING TO DO with the IMAP protocol. In fact, it is exactly the opposite: POP is the old protocol where you used to download your incoming messages and store them locally while with IMAP the idea is that messages are kept on the server that is more secure and can be used by many clients at the same time.

Apple mail stores all the messages for being able to use spotlight for search.

It is in the typical apple style to force the users to adopt their design choices. Therefore, even if I do non use the search feature, I have to waste tens of Gb on each and every client of mines because downloading all messages is no longer optional.

Depends on your settings in gmail and on mail.

Check your settings in Gmail. In snapshot below, if the user had POP enabled, note option 2. gmail's copy is in the Inbox. Which means you just keep seeing the same stuff over and over

Check your settings in Apple mail prefs as well as your Gmail prefs via the Web

Personally, I would get on gmail via Web first, delete your tens of thousands of emails first

logOutOfThisAppleId wrote:

Nevermind. I just went into the Mail app package and deleted the Unix executable.

Good riddance! Now hopefully the rest of "meet Yosemite" isn't so B-grade.

Thanks for your advice

You setup Mail to access Gmail via the IMAP protocol, it is doing what you asked. Perhaps clarify your requirements before assessing Mail as b-grade. An IMAP account will act in the very same manner regardless of which mail client you use. If you do not want the client and the server to stay synchronized, use POP instead.

logOutOfThisAppleId wrote:

Nevermind. I just went into the Mail app package and deleted the Unix executable.

Good riddance! Now hopefully the rest of "meet Yosemite" isn't so B-grade.

Thanks for your advice

I can't improve on comment by Csound1

The mail on both ends is doing what you have instructed 'them' to do.

A new gmail address and more discretion who gets that address would help reduce your incoming mail as well

🙂

POP will download unread and new mail only, it will not synchronize so if you use a smartphone the mail will be different from the Mac, useless in other words.

Mail does not take up that much room, the sensible thing is to let the download complete and use Gmail as its designers intended.

Try to understand, this is nothing to do with Mail, it is the standard behavior for an IMAP account, which is what you are using. Fixing the thing that is not the cause is a waste of time.

Use a POP account, it will not download all the old mail, even if it is in Mail it won't

Archive the older mail to a local folder in Mail, it will then be removed from the server but still accessible via your Mac.