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Mail is automatically archiving every gmail email

I have three gmail accounts. All of them are going immediately into their respective archive folders so I can't see them in my inbox. Even when I try to physically move them into my inbox then stay in the archive folder. I have done fairly extensive research on this and it appears to be a Mac Mail issue and not a Gmail issue as this problem is most definitely related to Mac Mail and how it's handling Gmail messages. I think the problem is that Mail is assigning the Archive folder for the Inbox for all the Gmail accounts. I don't see a way to change the default folder for the inbox so how can I fix the problem?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), null

Posted on Feb 25, 2016 9:56 AM

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24 replies

Oct 29, 2016 1:15 PM in response to Csound1

There is an archive function in Apple viewing preferences. But even though it is not checked, every one of my gmails is going into the archive box so I now have 8000+ emails in there. I don't know if I dare do a wholesale delete of all archived emails because I'm afraid that it will delete them from my inbox as well. This "archive" box only recently appeared and I'm fed up trying to get rid of it.

Nov 18, 2017 7:06 AM in response to chunnel

I found this and it works!


You should be able to do this by doing two things in your Gmail settings:

  1. Uncheck "Show in IMAP" next to "All mail"

    Open Gmail>>Settings>>Labels>>Find "All mail">>Deselect "Show in IMAP"

  2. Limit your IMAP folder size.

    Gmail>>Settings>>Forwarding and POP/IMAP>>Scroll down to IMAP access>>Click Limit IMAP folders>>Choose an amount>>Save your changes.

Hope this solves the problem for everyone!

May 15, 2017 2:11 PM in response to Csound1

And where is the switch to turn Archiving on or off in Gmail? I even searched Gmail Help and couldn't find it. If you're talking about having Auto-Expunge on or off, that's in IMAP access. Gmail defaults to "Auto-expunge on" when in turn automatically archives all mail. If you select "Auto-epxunge--off" you can chose to move mail to Trash. However, I still cannot FIND the 90,000+ archived emails in my Gmail account. And when I delete them from AppleMail, they just reload immediately.

May 16, 2017 7:44 AM in response to Eric Root

Thanks, Eric. Unfortunately I've already been to Gmail site, as I mentioned in the post: Gmail defaults to "Auto-expunge on" which in turn automatically archives all mail. If you select "Auto-epxunge--off" you can chose to move mail to Trash, or immediately delete it (permanently). Is this what you're referring to as the archiving function? If not, do you know specifically where that archiving function is in Gmail bc I sure can't find anything other than this auto-expunge on/off feature. More so, I cannot FIND the 90,000+ archived emails in my Gmail account. And when I delete them from AppleMail, they just reload immediately.

Feb 25, 2016 10:02 AM in response to chunnel

The 'archive' folder is simply the gmail "all mail" folder. Once messages are read, that's where they go by default.

If I had to guess, I'd say you have at least one of your email clients set up to access gmail using POP3. When a POP3 client downloads a message, the server flags it as having been read and gmail will remove the inbox tag. POP3 is not designed for use with multiple mail clients. Make sure all of your mail clients are set up to use IMAP to avoid this behavior. IMAP synchronizes all clients and the server.

Oct 29, 2016 3:53 PM in response to ElenaInez

ElenaInez wrote:


There is an archive function in Apple viewing preferences. But even though it is not checked, every one of my gmails is going into the archive box so I now have 8000+ emails in there.

That is a function of gmail, as has already been stated.

You need to go to the settings for gmail on mail.google.com and go to the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab.

Then you need to turn Auto-Expunge OFF.

When you do that, the option to move messages to the trash or delete them immediately when they are flagged as deleted will become available.


The problem is not the mail app on your Mac, iOS device, or even a PC. It's Google's non-standard implementation of IMAP.


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Mail is automatically archiving every gmail email

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