Mail - how to stop it using Important folder?

I turned off the "Show in IMAP" settings in Chrome/Gmail. Now my "important" messages are no longer showing in Important in Apple Mail (because the label is gone), nor are they showing in Inbox. This won't work. Can someone tell me how to get all my Gmail directed to the Inbox only? Thanks.

Nick

Gmail does that by default. No need to set up anything.

What you have to do is dismantle all of their goofy modifications to IMAP. Gmail isn't really IMAP; it just pretends to be.

Gmail "labels" messages with multiple tags; it doesn't move the message into folders. In order to show this functionality, Mail shows each Label in its own folder.

When email comes into Gmail, it is Labeled with Inbox and All Mail, and any other accoutrements such as Important.

When you move the message out of the Inbox in Mail, the "Inbox" label is removed, but all the rest remain.

Also note that when you delete an gmail in Mail, it isn't deleted. All that happens is the Inbox label is removed. It still remains labeled All Mail and thus remains available for Google to harvest.

You can disable showing the various labels on IMAP from the Gmail Settings page.

I have a slightly different problem with this. Certain messages are ONLY showing in my "Important" subfolder in all circumstances -- in Mac Mail, on the iPhone Mail, and as well in Google Mail through a browser. These are vital messages, but they do not show up in the regular Inbox in any of these 3 circumstances. I just clicked on "Don't use my past actions to predict which messages are important." in the Google Mail account, but I doubt this will fix the problem. It seems the source of the problem is that Google decides certain messages are important, but does NOT show them in the regular Inbox. This has left me missing some pretty vital messages (I won't use the word "important" here... as I'm getting allergic to it). Any ideas how to get ALL messages to appear in the regular Inbox (I know they appear in the "All Mail" box, but that and the Important box are always at the bottom of the Mac Mail screen and in another list on my iPhone, several clicks away, and I'd love to see everything just in the Inbox). Thanks

Yes, the big question would be why some of the email is losing the "Inbox" label. I have decided to try a workaround, although I don't see that it will solve this necessarily. There is a trick to get Google to stop labeling anything "Important".... Things should keep showing up under "All Mail" but I'll have to see if setting this filter does anything to make Google table things for the "Inbox"

Hello Barney,

I use Mail exclusively, but have a Gmail account and a Yahoo account forwarded to Mail. That way, I can read all my email in one place (ie., Mail).

I'm unclear what it means when I do a search in Mail for a particular subject heading, and it returns emails marked, "Important" under the "mailbox" header. Does that mean it's in another mailbox, not inbox and not something I've set up, but something imposed by gmail? Or, something else? How does one get rid of that label so one can see if the message is in the Mail inbox or some other user-created mailbox?

I'm unclear what it means when I do a search in Mail for a particular subject heading, and it returns emails marked, "Important" under the "mailbox" header. Does that mean it's in another mailbox, not inbox and not something I've set up, but something imposed by gmail? Or, something else?

If that is under the heading "mailbox," then I would assume that is the mailbox. I have never seen any messages that have Important in the mailbox column.

How does one get rid of that label so one can see if the message is in the Mail inbox or some other user-created mailbox?

If you have an "Important" mailbox listed under the Gmail header in the mailbox list, then you could try deleting it from there.

I am under the impression that Mail will remove the "Label" that corresponds to the mailbox when you remove it from that folder, and it should leave any other Labels intact.

Or, you can use Gmail's web portal to remove the Important "Label".

It appears that I'm very confused about how Gmail labels mail that, in my case, ends up in Apple Mail "inbox" on my machine.

Sometimes, the mail (in Apple Mail) just says "Inbox-Gmail for xxxxx." That's clearly email at Gmail that is showing up on my computer. But, sometimes, the label is "Starred" or "Important." I have not put those marks on the mail; Gmail has apparently done that.

Is Gmail guessing what is important and what is to be starred? Why is it done?

And, how does one stop Gmail from doing it?

Thank you.

I don't know much about all the superfluous features of gmail. I use it primarily as a spam repository. I use it when signing up for lists and such. So, if they sell my info, it just goes to the spam account (Gmail).

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is marked solved, less people are likely to look at it. You can link to this one.

If you go to Gmail's web portal and show the Important folder, do the messages show that they have an Inbox label (like this)?

Using Chrome for Mac, I go to my Google Mail account and click on the Important folder, and the messages that do not appear in the regular Inbox (or in my regular inbox on Mac Mail and iPhone) DO NOT have that "inbox" label like you circled in red above. The other "important" entries that DO have the "inbox" label also show up in the regular Inbox.

Well, at least it is displaying correctly. However, I don't know why some of your email is losing the Inbox label.

Do you have Important set to show in IMAP or not?

For myself, I have Important set to not show in IMAP, and I also have it hidden in the gmail portal. Every one of the messages marked as Important are also marked as Inbox.

I am having an issue in Apple Mail on a MacBook Pro with a Gmail account where I will see messages come into my inbox and then they will vanish. I suspect they may be getting labeled as "Important" by Gmail. Just had a similar but slightly different situation just now where 3 of us were on a message and everyone else got the message except for me. I looked in the Important folder and it's in there, but not in my inbox. Does anybody have a solution to this? I did just go into Gmail in a browser and tell it to not apply Important labels any longer, but the folder is still there in Apple Mail on my Mac.

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is marked solved, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one.