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di1in

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 27, 2011
248
20
Hi everybody,

I have an IMAP connection with the Google Apps email account that I use for work. I routinely end up hitting the 15GB cap (10-12 months worth of emails) and my company does not want to upgrade the capacity for the Google Apps account. They suggested I set up POP, but that will be a mess as I try to catch up with email from four different devices.

Is there anyway that I can have the older emails stored on my computer while deleting them from the Gmail server -- without it deleting my local copies due to the IMAP connection? I need to be able to actively search these older emails so Time Machine and exporting into a backup file would not work for me.
 

mikzn

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2013
3,005
2,293
North Vancouver
I think this is more of an IMAP issue than any email client.

Also have the same issue - limit of 22GB - with many large files - .DWG, .PDF and powerpoint / Keynote etc

I use Outlook for most of my email (work related) but also use apple mail -so the principal should be the same.

Outlook - I create an "on my computer" folder for each year - for example - inbox2016 and sent2016 - then once a month I archive emails from 3 months ago - example march 2016 - select these emails - use the shift / mouse select and hilight all the emails from March 2016 - then move to the "On My Computer" folder and let them download - then delete the march emails - they are now on the local version of outlook / mac mail.

test this with a few individual emails to make sure it is working.

hope that helps

BTW - I have done this for six years and can search the folders for past emails
 
Last edited:
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di1in

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 27, 2011
248
20
I think this is more of an IMAP issue than any email client.

Also have the same issue - limit of 22GB - with many large files - .DWG, .PDF and powerpoint / Keynote etc

I use Outlook for most of my email (work related) but also use apple mail -so the principal should be the same.

Outlook - I create an "on my computer" folder for each year - for example - inbox2016 and sent2016 - then once a month I archive emails from 3 months ago - example march 2016 - select these emails - use the shift / mouse select and hilight all the emails from March 2016 - then move to the "On My Computer" folder and let them download - then delete the march emails - they are now on the local version of outlook / mac mail.

test this with a few individual emails to make sure it is working.

hope that helps

BTW - I have done this for six years and can search the folders for past emails

Thanks for the reply.

Would it work if I set up a POP connection for Outlook/Thunderbird and an IMAP for Mac Mail at the same time?
 

mikzn

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2013
3,005
2,293
North Vancouver
Yeah that would work too - but the downside would be - no recent emails syncing across phone and iPad etc. Once you open the email in Thunderbird POP - it would cleared from the server (if set to remove from the server).

You could probably change the account settings to "leave the messages on the server" for a set period like 60 days?
 
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di1in

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 27, 2011
248
20
Yeah that would work too - but the downside would be - no recent emails syncing across phone and iPad etc. Once you open the email in Thunderbird POP - it would cleared from the server (if set to remove from the server).

You could probably change the account settings to "leave the messages on the server" for a set period like 60 days?

That helps. Thank you so much, mikzn!
 
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