Archiving email does not work properly with custom IMAP folder set as Archive

Hi Jason,

You are not doing anything wrong. This is clearly an iOS software inconsitency.

I also run into this bug when configuring my emails clients (MacOS Mail, Thunderbird and Outlook) to archive GMail messages into a custom named folder. As you pointed out, this bug only happens on iOS (Mac OS Mail, Thunderbird and Outlook they all correcly assign the Gmail custom label (as per the configured custom named folder in the email client) to any archived messages. I also want to be able to set a custom IMAP folder as archive because I hate the fact to have duplicates in my MacOS Mail, Thunderbird and Outlook mailboxes (which is otherwise inevitable due to redundancy between the GMail "All Mail" label and the other GMail labels seen by the email cleints as IMAP folder).

Currently - in iOS 9.3.4 - when archiving a message with the iOS Mail app, Apple programmers have decided to mimic the GMail behaviour being to remove the GMail inbox label from an archived message. Now, the problem you described happens because iOS allows to select a custom GMail label as Archive Mailbox (cf. "Mailbox behaviours" in your screenshot 1 wherein the GMail custom label is in your case "Manual Archive"). Hence, as a user we would assume to be able to set our custom GMail label to any archived message however this does not happen, as I said when archiving a message the archived message (a) gets the inbox label removed, (b) it gets the "All Mail" GMail label and (c) it DOES NOT get the previosly mentioned GMail custom label. Apple should - for a GMail account - remove the option to allow a user to select a custom GMail label as Archive Mailbox (this would at least fix the inconsistency) or, better, Apple should address this bug by calling out the Google API correctly and assign the previosly mentioned GMail custom label to any archived messages. I hope Apple will fix this.

For the records:

- a Google employee also replied you "It sounds like an glitch with Apple Mail not communicating correctly with Gmail" (cf. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/Tgocdp4SXeg);

- another post complaining about the same bug: Re: Gmail archiving in iOS doesn't work as expected;

- it seems we are alone with this - for me - significant problem;

The current iOS behavior is unacceptable and, I must say, I am disappointed in Apple.

I hope I will be able to find a solution on the Apple Support Community however I suspect there is currently no solution.

Cheers all.

The simplest solution is to install Google's gmail app and use it instead of the Apple mail app.

Thank you but given the fact my need is to centralize multiple mailboxes - not all of them GMail - your proposal does not solve my problem.

Here is a workaround solution that allows to archive Gmail emails to a custom IMAP folder set as archive.

This solution also avoids Gmail emails to be duplicated when synced by an IMAP email client (duplicates happen when the IMAP email client is subscribed to both "Inbox" and "All Mail").

Problem:

• In your email client all GMail received messages are duplicated;
• You want to configure your email client with a separate GMail folder containing only archived emails (you don't want your email client to see the GMail "All Mail" folder containing all received, sent, and archived messages but you want one unique folder containing only archived emails).

Cause:

• Your PC or Mac email client is subscribed to the GMail “All Mail” folder; hence, any received message will be in the IMAP “Inbox” folder but also in the IMAP “All Mail” folder (any email clients sees a GMail label as a different IMAP folder; hence the duplicate);
• Google does not store archived messages in their own separate folder, but rather moves them to the "All Mail" label that is used for displaying all messages in your email account.

Solution:

1. In GMail, create a Label and name it “My Archive”;
2. In Gmail, create a filter applying the label “My Archive” to all incoming emails;
3. In Gmail, under Settings -> Labels, untick the “Show in IMAP” for “All Mail” and tick it for “My Archive”;
4. In the iPhone, Mail settings, configure the GMail Inbox to archive all emails in the “My Archive” IMAP folder;
5. In your PC or Mac email client, subscribe to the “My Archive” IMAP folder;
6. In your PC or Mac email client, configure the GMail Mailbox to archive messages in the “My Archive” IMAP folder (in Thunderbird, select “My Archive” under Tools->Account settings->your GMail Mailbox->Message Archives->Keep message archives in (tick it)->Other->”My Archive”).

Explanation:

• In Gmail, all received emails in the Inbox will have, prior to archiving, both the “Inbox” and the “My archive” labels. When archiving an email located in the Inbox, GMail removes the “Inbox” label from the email while the “My Archive” label remains sticked to it. From an IMAP email client standpoint, it will look like if the archived email was "moved" into the “My Archive” folder;
• This solution produces identical results either the archive process is performed on the iPhone Mail app or on GMail from your browser.

Notes:

• Once and a while, use the “-from:me -in:inbox has:nouserlabels” command on GMail from your browser to make sure there are not “orphan” emails (i.e. emails that are neither in the inbox nor on the “My Archive” folder” hence not visible in your email client). “Orphans” will be created when archiving on your iPhone with no network (for instance, assume you archive messages with such solution while in a plane);
• IMPORTANT:
  • on the iPhone Mail client, the “My archive” folder will be still seen as “All Mail”. However, such “All Mail” folder will not be the GMail “All Mail” folder, but your “My Archive” folder;
  • Such collateral effect can be avoided by nesting the “My Archive” label under the [GMail] IMAP path prefix, but in this case the “My Archive” folder will not be at the same level of the the same level of the other IMAP folders, your choice.

Thanks - this finally makes sense. But darn google that we have to go through that. Pain in the arse!

That is true but I really like being able to check all of my different mail (iCloud, gmail, Microsoft) in one place. Darn it.