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kvdv

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 5, 2008
60
0
If Gmail will archive everything (received, sent, deleted) in the "All Mail" folder, doesn't that make the Trash folder obsolete?

I can permanently delete messages in Mail.app and then i don't see them in the Gmail or Mail.app Trash, but i can always find them again in the All Mail folder.

Is this correct? Or what would be bad about working this way?

Thanks,
Kris
 
If Gmail will archive everything (received, sent, deleted) in the "All Mail" folder, doesn't that make the Trash folder obsolete?

I can permanently delete messages in Mail.app and then i don't see them in the Gmail or Mail.app Trash, but i can always find them again in the All Mail folder.

Is this correct? Or what would be bad about working this way?

Thanks,
Kris

Gmail does not keep deleted messages in "All Mail". It may keep messages that are in the Trash in there, but, if you really delete them, then they will disappear from everywhere. (i.e. Empty trash in Mail.app).

Gmail handles mail in a very, very odd manner. With the tags and such. It doesn't translate well to a desktop environment of folders, etc. Because, you do a search and you get two hits for everything. Unfortunately, their IMAP service has not been refined for desktop usage.
 
Yes, odd indeed. What I do with GMail is...

- on my iMac, I trash mails I don't want (typically I keep all mail except spam and legitimate advertisements), and move the rest to saved mail folders.

- on my iPhone, I never delete anything

- on GMail, I never delete anything

Since GMail seems to have more than abundant space, it seems to work fine. My primary long term archive is my iMac, and I keep whatever I want there, but I can also always find the Gmail mails from the web interface again if I want them.

The net result is that GMail on the web is fairly messy and the inbox contains thousands of messages, including rather a lot of crap. But with the way GMail works, it seems to not be a major detriment.

But then I take it this system precludes me from using Gmail IMAP?
 
The way my Gmail account looks in my mail is that it has an Inbox, Sent, and Junk folder. Then under Gmail it includes All Mail, Spam, and Starred.

There is no Trash folder. When I delete something, it goes into the Gmail All Mail Folder as you mentioned. So I guess the Trash folder is obsolete (I don't know if I deleted it or it does not appear because it is linked to Gmail).

I guess If I really want to delete them then I have to delete them a second time from the All Mail folder.

mkrishnan, I think you can just "delete" the files you don't want in your inbox in Mail.app and it will move them to the "All Mail" folder by default. Then if you want to really remove them forever, you have to delete it from the All Mail folder in Mail.app.

Now how many people have enabled the "Junk" folder in the Mail.app? I think Google recommends you disable this in Mail.app because it already filters Junk mail. Will this cause any problems?
 
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