archive mailbox in Mail with a mind of its own

That is GMail's "All Mail" "Label".

Gmail doesn't use Folders. It "tags" messages with a Label that looks like a folder on most IMAP email clients (like Mail).

Messages can have more than one Label. All messages are tagged with the All Mail label along with whatever other label is appropriate, like "Inbox".

Previously, Mail did not show you the All Mail folder. It now maps that Label to the Archive mailbox in Mail.

So, you can now see all of the email that Google has been storing that you thought you had deleted.

When you delete a gmail message in Mail, it removes the Label for the folder that it is currently in when you selected it (Inbox for example). It does not remove the All Mail label or any other Labels.

That is how Gmail stores all of your email so it can harvest your information as required to push targeted ads to you.

There have been other threads noting a similar problem to yours that the messages do not show in Inbox. I don't know how to solve that.

You can disable viewing the All Mail label in Mail (and any other IMAP email client) by changing the settings in your Gmail account on the web.

Open the Gmail web portal and select the Settings.

Click on the Labels tab.

Find the All Mail label and uncheck the box to show All Mail in IMAP.

I don't know if this will restore your ability to see the messages in the inbox. If it doesn't, you'll have to search out the other threads on Gmail

I had the same issue of gmail not showing up in my Mail client inbox for Gmail after OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 upgrade. My Gmail started showing up in my Comcast inbox AND Archive folder. I think I found the issue in my Gmail settings on mail.google.com, Settings, Forwarding & POP/IMAP. For some reason, my mail was being forwarded to my Comcast account and archiving the Gmail copy. I don't recall setting that up, but I disabled gmail forwarding, and that fixed the issue.

TY Barney, this fixed my issue with archived Gmail too.

So really, the Archive mailbox is displaying deleted and other mail on Google's servers, not on my iMac's HD?

Surprising that the Archive mailbox is used this way by Google without consent, also the lack of info on Apple's side is annoying.

Google has nothing to do with how Apple chose to implement it. Apple chose to map All Mail to the Archive because that is essentially what All Mail is. They didn't previously map to that folder so you were unaware of what Google was doing.

The fact that it is on Google's server is just how IMAP email works. Messages are stored on the server and "sync'd" to the local computer as you or the developer chooses to implement.

The All Mail "feature" is all Google, though.

Thanks for the clarification Barney.

I decided to query the issue of the Archive folder because I assumed that mail in it was located on my iMac; I'm doing a clean-up in order to help reduce my iMacs sluggish behaviour.

drowningindata,

I seem to be missing earlier posts between you and Barney-15E on the weird behavior of Mail. Since upgrading to El Capitan 10.11.6 yesterday, all my gmail new emails are being placed in my Archive mailbox but NOT in my inbox. It was almost as if the OS X upgrade caused this change in behavior. But, maybe it was a coincidence. In your conversation with Barney-15E, was this the topic?

I assumed that mail in it was located on my iMac; I'm doing a clean-up in order to help reduce my iMacs sluggish behaviour.

It is on your Mac, and it is also on Google's server. Gmail is an IMAP-like account in that the messages are all stored on the server, but they are sync'd to your Mac so you have a local copy if you are not online.

You can save some space on your Mac by not mapping the All Mail folder as Mail does by default. In the Settings on the Gmail account portal, select the Labels tab. Find the All Mail label and uncheck the Show in IMAP checkbox. That will prevent it showing up on your Mac. However, Google will continue to save all of your emails in the All Mail folder, even if you delete them. You can disable that, also.

This just started happening to me on July 25, 2016 right after upgrading to El Capitan 10.11.6.

This has been irritating me for so long~

THANK YOU!!