Apple Mail suddenly downloads thousands of emails from Gmail

[paulCC]

This has occurred several times already ( I guess few months apart ). My Apple Mail suddenly decided to download several thousand messages. Today, it is 4957 messages, to be precise.

Of course, I do not have so many new messages. The mailbox shows only 2 new messages at this point, and those are probably correctly labeled as new.

There do not seem to be duplicate messages in Mail after this finishes. I do not know if there is some duplicate storage for the emails/attachments that are re-downloaded.

I am using IMAP access to Gmail.

Even if there is no harm in Mail doing this, it bothers me....

Looking for any info/comments/suggestions on this.

Thanks, PaulCC.

 

[phoenixsan]

That....

happens to me when managing a Google mail account via Mail with IMAP. I dont check the Gmail account for some 4 months. Fire up Mail and try to manage the Gmail account and bam!.....600 mails....

 

[Weaselboy]

Logon on to gmail.com and in setting look at the labels tab. There are checkboxes there for which folders you want to sync with IMAP. UNcheck the "All Mail" label.

By having that checked it causes IMAP to DL two of every messages. One into the folder (label) it is in and a second in the All Mail folder duplicated in your Mail app.

Uncheck this box and your Gmail messages coming in to Mail app will be cut in half.

 

[Ravi Rangan]

I am facing this problem with El Capitan. The problem happens each time I open the application and even after the Gmail account "All mail" synch has been unchecked and the number of emails to download has been limited to 1,000. I have a Macbook Air and a iMac and the problem has started on both, after upgrading to El Capitan.

 

[Fishrrman]

This is why I still use "POP" and will keep using it until it is no longer available to be used.

Download your mail -once-, and it's "off the server" forever.

Actually, there's another reason to use it, at least here in the USA.
The government has declared that email that remains "on the server" for more than six months is considered "abandoned" -- and they can go in and harvest it at will, without the requirement to obtain a search warrant beforehand.

With POP, that mail is "no longer there" to be harvested as abandoned...

 

[philcam]

I am facing this problem with El Capitan. The problem happens each time I open the application and even after the Gmail account "All mail" synch has been unchecked and the number of emails to download has been limited to 1,000. I have a Macbook Air and a iMac and the problem has started on both, after upgrading to El Capitan.

 

[philcam]

So have you found a fix for this yet? Driving me absolutely crazy, and stopping me from upgrading my main mac to El Capitan.

 

[simonsi]

This is why I still use "POP" and will keep using it until it is no longer available to be used.

Download your mail -once-, and it's "off the server" forever.

Actually, there's another reason to use it, at least here in the USA.
The government has declared that email that remains "on the server" for more than six months is considered "abandoned" -- and they can go in and harvest it at will, without the requirement to obtain a search warrant beforehand.

With POP, that mail is "no longer there" to be harvested as abandoned...

That shows a shocking Govt misunderstanding of how people use email, as I probably have email on a US server somewhere I'm intrigued, where is that statement made by the US Govt?

If it really is that simplistic then 1000's of US-based exchange and IMAP servers would be considered to still "have mail on the server" - and it would conflict directly with various Federal information retention requirements if certain email was removed from those servers (inc Govt mail servers).

 

[chscag]

This is why I still use "POP" and will keep using it until it is no longer available to be used.

Download your mail -once-, and it's "off the server" forever.

Actually, there's another reason to use it, at least here in the USA.
The government has declared that email that remains "on the server" for more than six months is considered "abandoned" -- and they can go in and harvest it at will, without the requirement to obtain a search warrant beforehand.

With POP, that mail is "no longer there" to be harvested as abandoned...

Not entirely true. You have to set that as an option in Mail preferences otherwise it remains on the server by default if you're using POP mail.